Recently, The Economist Intelligence Unit released a 60-year forecast on the eve of its 60-year anniversary. I'm quite a fan of The Economist, and have been an avid reader for about 10 years now. In my opinion, while heavily biased in its recommendations, its one of the few places where you can get a reasonably accurate, reasonably balanced, and utterly global yet locally relevant view of the world in under an hour. I never get on a plane without it.
In true style, the piece starts with a cheeky look back at 1946 - the year that the modern-day espresso machine was invented in Italy, Americans invented computing, and the French brought us the bikini.
In assessing the last 60 years, The Economist sticks to its brazenly optimistic style and starts out by reminding us that the world today actually isn't all that bad. "Wars kill fewer people today than at almost any time since the 1920s." And globally, we are smarter, living longer, and growing taller and fatter - "as one American researcher at the University of Chicago told the New York Times, the transformation is 'unique among the 7,000 or so generations of humans who have ever inhabited the earth.'" Some 400 million people have been pulled out of poverty since 1946. The rosy picture is tainted only by 1) enduring poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, 2) recurring financial crises triggered by globalization and 3) the failure of women to achieve equal representation in politics.
In the forecast of 2026, things start to get interesting. By then, India and South Korea will have replaced Italy and Spain in the Top Ten list of largest economies. China and India will account for 45% of world economic growth - and by then the size of the world economy will have doubled. There will be loads of old people - EIU says look to Japan as an early indicator of the future for the rest of the developed economies.
But its the view of 2066 that makes this piece worth reading.
Sixty years hence, according to EIU projections, only the US and India will still have a growing workforce - all other developed economies (and that includes China and Vietnam and just about everywhere else) will be getting old extremely fast. Some 35 to 50% of EU citizens will be over age 60. Ironically, Britain's openness to immigration is likely to re-instate its past glory as Europe's largest economy by mid-century.
While earlier the report argues that "America's dominance of the 20th century will continue into the first few decades of the 21st", by 2066 "the Asian Century will be in full swing". The report forecasts a US that is still armed to the teeth but "won't dare to act without the nod every now and then from a now very wealthy China and India."
My favorite part of the whole piece of this relatively conservative forecast is the box that pulls out a list of "New countries by 2066?" - Catalonia, Guangzhou, Quebec, and Wales among the more interesting and significant.
My favorite is the "Globalcorp 2066" with "Google Goldman Sachs" and "BollyDisney".
It certainly shows the confidence of the authors in concentration and globalization, mixing HiTech leaders with developping countries market leaders.
Posted by: Funboby | January 03, 2007 at 01:45 AM