Altucher on why the markets will continue to hit all-time highs

The old paradigm of job security and single-income households is waning.  In the twenty-first century, people need new skills and a new approach to thrive, according to James Altucher, author of “The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth.”

“People have to figure out how to say ‘I can be happy and abundant without someone choosing me to be abundant,’ without a boss saying ‘OK you're great,’ or a publisher saying ‘We want to publish your book,’” Altucher says.

Dealing with failure is a major obstacle for many people, he says, and calls life “a sentence of failures punctuated with some successes.” He adds that people need to learn how to handle failure to catapult themselves to prosperity.

Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App

As for investing, Altucher notes that for the past 200 years doomsayers have had the wrong outlook.

“The reality is we're at the all time highs in the stock market and it's going to continue.  I'm not even saying I'm going to be recommending buy(ing) stocks, but the stock market will continue to reach all-time highs for the next 200 years as well.”

In his book, Altucher suggests demographic trends to watch, including retiring Baby Boomers (who will need special living facilities and better medical treatment), energy consumption (as the population grows, so does energy use), and temporary staffing (companies continue toward hiring “flexible” workforces).

He also suggests investing with “someone smarter than you.” He singles out legendary investor Warren Buffett, who has to file a 13G form every quarter detailing his investments and purchase prices. In Altucher’s example, he proposes buying at a lower price than Buffet, which “makes Buffett your free employee.” You may have to dig to find smart investors, he says, but the 13G filings are a good place to start.