- In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he's hopeful about the younger generation despite a looming retirement crisis.
- "I am bullish on these young people," Fink said. "They're smarter than we were at our age, they have more global understanding of the world."
In an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink expressed optimism about the next generation despite a looming retirement crisis.
"I am bullish on these young people," Fink said. "They're smarter than we were at our age, they have more global understanding of the world."
But Fink stressed the seriousness of the retirement crisis, echoing sentiments he wrote about in his annual letter to BlackRock shareholders. Fink called for the government and the private sector to take action, saying the country needs an "organized, high-level effort" to ensure Americans can retire comfortably. He also wrote that his company — the world's largest asset manager worth $10 trillion — was founded in part to help people retire, asserting that capital markets are essential to this goal.
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"No other force can lift more people from poverty or improve quality of life quite like capitalism," Fink wrote in his letter.
Fink said that 30 or 40 years ago, it wasn't common to talk about saving for retirement. But now there's no choice but to do so because the U.S. is not prepared to deal with such a fast-growing population of older Americans. Many put retirement "under the table because it's not today's problems," he said.
To Fink, talking about these issues will help to mitigate them, while ignoring them will just make them more severe. He said it's leaders like him who have the responsibility of "speaking the truth with facts, with consistency." Fink said investing is an essential part of helping people save enough money to live well when they stop working.
Money Report
"The key is putting that money to work," he said. "It's not keeping money in a bank account, it's about the compounding of a return and building a retirement over a long horizon."
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