“We enter the next decade with interest rates at 5,000-year lows, the largest asset bubble in history, a planet that is heating up, and a deflationary profile of debt, disruption and demographics. We will end it with nearly 1bn people added to the world, a rapidly ageing population, up to 800mn people facing the threat of job automation and the environment on the brink of catastrophic change” (quote from the Globe and Mail 12 November 2019).

Merrill Lynch’s recent report and predictions for the next decade

make for rather grim reading.  Called Transforming World: The 2020s, it predicts growing unemployment, financial bubbles popping, growing global populations and an environment on the brink of disaster. It is difficult to argue against any of these assumptions and predictions. However, the report may underestimate the positive effects of the increasing global mobility of labour and people, as a way to counter the ageing population and unemployment. See also  globalmobilitymigration.com. 

Johann van Rooyen (Director: Citizenship & Residence Research Consultants (CRRC)