Demographics
The UN expects “Earthling #7 Billion” to be born this week – the report will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 26th 2011. Yet it’s just a symbol to spark a stream of articles about overpopulation – demographics, at this level, is open to much debate. Clive Cookson in the Financial Times had a short piece with a brilliant infographic, and the New York Times today has an entire debate series about it. We link to other sources. Not being able to reach a conclusion is no excuse not to think about it.
This article was just published in today’s Financial Times: “Brazil hosts a homecoming”. A few expats coming back do not necessarily a trend make, but we’d say that 1) it’d be nice to see the reversal of the brain drain of the last few decades, and 2) it makes sense in a “Brazil is the new China” way given the number of CVs by foreigners seeking to work in Brazil that firms like ours have been receiving in the last 1-2 years.
A NYT article highlights research being done on aging at MIT and in other places, in which the idea behind the effort is no longer just for medical or policy-making, macro-economic, demographic-challenge stuff: it’s about senior citizens as a consumer force to be reckoned with, and how to market for them. As one person says in the article: “If you are a Fortune 100 company, or an inventor in a garage, where are you going to find another demographic that is that large, that robust in spending power, that open to new possibilities, and that underserved?”
Our hopes for mankind were renewed when we received a great suggestion by a reader today. Better yet, this reader has sent great stuff before and this is no exception. Keep those suggestions coming! We have the full BBC documentary with global health professor Hans Rosling inside. There’s also more on Hans Rosling and data visualization, including tips on how to build your own presentation with this data.
This roundtable on “The Demographic Dilemma” by Booz & Co. reminded us of the informational challenge as Ms. Wang insisted on it: what are the actual measures of the “impact” of aging, what should we be looking at? Without information that leads to intelligence and then action, it’s just an empty debate. Our main point is that this informational dilemma occurs in plenty of other fields and that we must always be mindful of the fact that sometimes there’s simply not enough information to draw insightful, actionable conclusions.
Official immigration decreasing, previously “hot” areas with unprecedented swings, NY’s staggering numbers… Sure, a data point does not a trend make, but demographics are too powerful to ignore as a long-term driver. And it’s hard to argue that the US is well-positioned. This WSJ story has lots of interactive charts and features, and here’s the primary source.
How does “fixing” Toyota (whatever that means) change a country’s demographics time-bomb or its still-rattling financial system? While there are interesting food-for-thought bits in these pieces, they all seem to give way too much importance to “planning a country” in a world where central planning (again, whatever that means) for a country of this size and relatively free market is ever less effective – if it ever was.
