Monday’s Interesting Quotes post highlighted how China’s leadership clearly recognise they have a massive debt problem, as detailed in the blog’s recent Research Note. Further evidence for this was provided by yesterday’s bank lending figures, which showed total lending down 19% versus March 2013 at Rmb2.07tn ($333bn), and the lowest increase in money supply since 2001. This makes […]
Chemicals and the Economy
“US population is aging: older people tend to consume and spend less”
Its not just the UK that is seeing an earthquake taking place in consumer demand patterns, as the blog discussed last week. The same earthquake is taking place in the world’s largest consumer market, the USA. As the Wall Street Journal reports: “For the past three years running, unit sales of consumer products have been […]
“Unparalleled seismic demographic shifts now underway” in UK
What happens to demand when women stop having lots of babies, and the general population starts living very much longer? Common sense would suggest economic growth would go through 2 quite remarkable changes: Phase 1. Growth would accelerate, as the population became concentrated in the wealth creating 25 – 54 age group, and the need […]
McDonald’s starts hiring young and old as the ‘demographic cliff’ arrives
Its really not that difficult to work out that much of the world faces a ‘demographic cliff’. But very few companies seem to want to act on the implications. So hats off to McDonald’s Europe for highlighting what needs to be done. Their chief people officer, David Fairhurst, told the Financial Times this week: “The […]
“Stagnation might prove to be the new normal” for the US
The blog returns today to its series on how demographic changes are impacting the 5 largest economies in the world. Having looked at China and Japan in NEA, it now moves across the Pacific to the USA. Like all the major economies, the US is now ageing fast as a consequence of the trends in the chart above: […]
The end of constant economic growth
You can’t turn 55-year-olds back into 30-year-olds. That, in a nutshell, is why today’s globally ageing populations are creating major changes in demand patterns. Household consumption is more than 60% of GDP in all developed countries, and also the key driver for future growth in emerging economies. So the rise of the New Old 55+ […]
G7 births hit new record low in 2012
The G7 group of countries are almost half (47%) of global GDP*. They also have the highest incomes, and are therefore still the major driver for the global economy. If we understand what is happening to their populations, we have a great insight in the key driver for demand, as we showed in ‘Boom, Gloom and the […]
The blog on MoneyWeek TV
The importance of demographics in driving demand is clearly becoming more widely understood. This week, the blog was interviewed by the editors of MoneyWeek (the UK’s leading investment magazine) in the implications of today’s ageing western population for investors. The interview covered a wide range of subjects: • The importance of 2013 as the year […]
Sustaining growth as the West reaches the ‘demographic cliff’
2013 is the year that the Western world reaches the ‘demographic cliff’. Its BabyBoomers (born between 1946-70) are the largest and wealthiest generation that the world has ever known. Now they are ageing rapidly. They have less money to spend as they move towards retirement. And they mainly buy replacement products, not new ones, as […]
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