A man who has been right about very big things many times before, Herbert Mayer, makes the case that we are on the brink of a massive global boom:
When you stand back from all the yelling and the screaming...you can see what I believe is the most important trend in the word...the world is emerging from poverty fast. This is the biggest under-reported news story in the world...This vast middle class, which will exceed five billion people, will fuel enormous demand for Western products and services. If we let them.If we can continue this trend within our lifetimes, and certainly within our children's lifetimes, the overwhelming majority of human beings will no longer be poor. This is the biggest thing that's happened in the entire world.
These are the fruits of the Western victory in the Cold War, and the end of Communism as an economic model (even if it persists as the justification for oppression in China and a few other places).
Re: Herbert Mayer
ReplyDelete"He is widely credited as having been the first senior official to predict the fall of the Soviet Union."
Bruce Nussbaum (BusinessWeek) predicted the collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union in his 1984 book "The World After Oil: The Shifting Axis of Power." (Nussbaum reportedly had talked to money guys in Switzerland.)
That's why I was surprised so many American politicians and bureaucrats were caught off guard by the collapse.