by Adam Hartung | Sep 30, 2016 | Immigration, Leadership, Lifecycle, Trends
I write about trends. Technology trends are exciting, because they can come and go fast – making big winners of some companies (Apple, Facebook, Tesla, Amazon) and big losers out of others (Blackberry, Motorola, Saab, Sears.) Leaders that predict technology trends can make lots of money, in a hurry, while those who miss these trends can fail faster than anyone expected.
But unlike technology, one of the most important trends is also the most predictable trend. That is demographics. Quite simply, it is easy to predict the population of most countries, and most states. And predict the demographic composition of countries by age, gender, ancestry, even religion. And while demographic trends are remarkably easy to predict very accurately, it is amazing how few people actually plan for them. Yet, increasingly, ignoring demographic trends is a bad idea.
Take for example the aging world population. Quite simply, in most of the world there have not been enough births to keep up with those who ar\e getting older. Fewer babies, across decades, and you end up with a population that is skewed to older age. And, eventually, a population decline. And that has a lot of implications, almost all of which are bad.
Look at Japan. Every September 19 the Japanese honor Respect for the Aged Day by awarding silver sake dishes to those who are 100 or older. In 1966, they gave out a few hundred. But after 46 straight years of adding centenarians to the population, including adding 32,000 in just the last year, there are over 65,000 people in Japan over 100 years old. While this is a small percentage, it is a marker for serious economic problems.
Over 25% of all Japanese are over 65. For decades Japan has had only 1.4 births per woman, a full third less than the necessary 2.1 to keep a population from shrinking. That means today there are only 3 people in Japan for every “retiree.” So a very large percentage of the population are no longer economically productive. They no longer are creating income, spending and growing the economy. With only 3 people to maintain every retiree, the national cost to maintain the ageds’ health and well being soon starts becoming an enormous tax, and economic strain.
What’s worse, by 2060 demographers expect that 40% of Japanese will be 65+. Think about that – there will be almost as many over 65 as under 65. Who will cover the costs of maintaining this population? The country’s infrastructure? Japan’s defense from potentially being overtaken by neighbors, such as China? How does an economy grow when every citizen is supporting a retiree in addition to themselves?
Government policies had a lot to do with creating this aging trend. For example in China there was a 1 child per family policy from 1978 to 2015 – 37 years. The result is a massive population of people born prior to 1978 (their own “baby boom”) who are ready to retire. But there are now far fewer people available to replace this workforce. Worse, the 1 child policy also caused young families to abort – or even kill – baby girls, thus causing the population to skew heavily male, and reduce the available women to reproduce.
This means that China’s aging population problem will not recover for several more decades. Today there are 5 workers for every retiree in China. But there are already more people exiting China’s workforce than entering it each year. We can easily predict there will be both an aging, and a declining, population in China for another 40 years. Thus, by 2040 (just 24 years away) there will be only 1.6 workers for each retiree. The median age will shift from 30 to 46, making China one of the planet’s oldest populations. There will be more people over age 65 in China than the entire populations of Germany, Japan, France and Britain combined!
While it is popular to discuss an emerging Chinese middle class, that phenomenon will be short-lived as the country faces questions like – who will take care of these aging people? Who will be available to work, and grow the economy? To cover health care costs? Continued infrastructure investment? Lacking immigration, how will China maintain its own population?
“OK,” American readers are asking, “that’s them, but what about us?” In 1970 there were about 20M age 65+ in the USA. Today, 50M. By 2050, 90M. In 1980 this was 11% of the population. But 2040 it will be over 20% (stats from Population Reference Bureau.)
While this is a worrisome trend, one could ask why the U.S. problem isn’t as bad as other countries? The answer is simply immigration. While Japan and China have almost no immigration, the U.S. immigrant population is adding younger people who maintain the workforce, and add new babies. If it were not for immigration, the U.S. statistics would look far more like Asian countries.
Think about that the next time it seems appealing to reduce the number of existing immigrants, or slow the number of entering immigrants. Without immigrants the U.S. would be unable to care for its own aging population, and simultaneously unable to maintain sufficient economic growth to maintain a competitive lead globally. While the impact is a big shift in the population from European ancestry toward Latino, Indian and Asian, without a flood of immigrants America would crush (like Japan and China) under the weight of its own aging demographics.
Like many issues, what looks obvious in the short-term can be completely at odds with a long-term solution. In this case, the desire to remove and restrict immigration sounds like a good idea to improve employment and wages for American citizens. And shutting down trade with China sounds like a positive step toward the same goals. But if we look at trends, it is clear that demographic shifts indicate that the countries that maximize their immigration will actually do better for their indigenous population, while improving international competitiveness.
Demographic trends are incredibly accurately predictable. And they have enormous implications for not only countries (and their policies,) but companies. Do your forward looking plans use demographic trends to plan for:
- maintaining a trained workforce?
- sourcing products from a stable, competitive country?
- having a workplace conducive to employees who speak English as a second language?
- a workplace conducive to religions beyond Christianity?
- investing in more capital to produce more with fewer workers?
- products that appeal to people not born in the USA?
- selling products in countries with growing populations, and economies?
- paying higher costs for more retirees who live longer?
Most planning systems, unfortunately, are backward-looking. They bring forward lots of data about what happened yesterday, but precious few projections about trends. Yet, we live in an ever changing world where trends create important, large shifts – often faster than anticipated. And these trends can have significant implications. To prepare everyone should use trends in their planning, and you can start with the basics. No trend is more basic than understanding demographics.
by Adam Hartung | Sep 23, 2016 | Disruptions, In the Rapids, Innovation, Leadership, Television, Web/Tech
In early August Tesla announced it would be buying SolarCity. The New York Times discussed how this combination would help CEO Elon Musk move toward his aspirations for greater clean energy use. But the Los Angeles Times took the companies to task for merging in the face of tremendous capital needs at both, while Tesla was far short of hitting its goals for auto and battery production.
Since then the press has been almost wholly negative on the merger. Marketwatch’s Barry Randall wrote that the deal makes no sense. He argues the companies are in two very different businesses that are not synergistic – and he analogizes this deal to GM buying Chevron. He also makes the case that SolarCity will likely go bankrupt, so there is no good reason for Tesla shareholders to “bail out” the company. And he argues that the capital requirements of the combined entities are unlikely to be fundable, even for its visionary CEO.
Fortune quotes legendary short seller Jim Chanos as saying the deal is “crazy.” He argues that SolarCity has an uneconomic business model based on his analysis of historical financial statements. And now Fortune is reporting that shareholder lawsuits to block the deal could delay, or kill, the merger.
But short-sellers are clearly not long-term investors. And there is a lot more ability for this deal to succeed and produce tremendous investor returns than anyone could ever glean from studying historical financial statements of both companies.
GM buying Chevron is entirely the wrong analogy to compare with Tesla buying SolarCity. Instead, compare this deal to what happened in the creation of television after General Sarnoff, who ran RCA, bought what he renamed NBC.
The world already had radio (just as we already have combustion powered cars.) The conundrum was that nobody needed a TV, especially when there were no TV programs. But nobody would create TV programs if there were no consumers with TVs. General Sarnoff realized that both had to happen simultaneously – the creation of both demand, and supply. It would only be by the creation, and promotion, of both that television could be a success. And it was General Sarnoff who used this experience to launch the first color televisions at the same time as NBC launched the first color programming – which fairly quickly pushed the industry into color.
Skeptics think Mr. Musk and his companies are in over their heads, because there are manufacturing issues for the batteries and the cars, and the solar panel business has yet to be profitable. Yet, the older among us can recall all the troubles with launching TV.
Early sets were not only expensive, they were often problematic, with frequent component failures causing owners to take the TV to a repairman. Often reception was poor, as people relied on poor antennas and weak network signals. It was common to turn on a set and have “snow” as we called it – images that were far from clear. And there was often that still image on the screen with the words “Technical Difficulties,” meaning that viewers just waited to see when programming would return. And programming was far from 24×7 – and quality could be sketchy. But all these problems have been overcome by innovation across the industry.
Yes, the evolution of electric cars will involve a lot of ongoing innovation. So judging its likely success on the basis of recent history would be foolhardy. Today Tesla sells 100% of its cars, with no discounts. The market has said it really, really wants its vehicles. And everybody who is offered electric panels with (a) the opportunity to sell excess power back to the grid and (b) financing, takes the offer. People enjoy the low cost, sustainable electricity, and want it to grow. But lacking a good storage device, or the inability to sell excess power, their personal economics are more difficult.
Electricity production, electricity storage (batteries) and electricity consumption are tightly linked technologies. Nobody will build charging stations if there are no electric cars. Nobody will build electric cars if there are not good batteries. Nobody will make better batteries if there are no electric cars. Nobody will install solar panels if they can’t use all the electricity, or store what they don’t immediately need (or sell it.)
This is not a world of an established marketplace, where GM and Chevron can stand alone. To grow the business requires a vision, business strategy and technical capability to put it all together. To make this work someone has to make progress in all the core technologies simultaneously – which will continue to improve the storage capability, quality and safety of the electric consuming automobiles, and the electric generating solar panels, as well as the storage capabilities associated with those panels and the creation of a new grid for distribution.
This is why Mr. Musk says that combining Tesla and SolarCity is obvious. Yes, he will have to raise huge sums of money. So did such early pioneers as Vanderbilt (railways,) Rockefeller (oil,) Ford (autos,) and Watson (computers.) More recently, Steve Jobs of Apple became heroic for figuring out how to simultaneously create an iPhone, get a network to support the phone (his much maligned exclusive deal with AT&T,) getting developers to write enough apps for the phone to make it valuable, and creating the retail store to distribute those apps (iTunes.) Without all those pieces, the ubiquitous iPhone would have been as successful as the Microsoft Zune.
It is fair for investors to worry if Tesla can raise enough money to pull this off. But, we don’t know how creative Mr. Musk may become in organizing the resources and identifying investors. So far, Tesla has beaten all the skeptics who predicted failure based on price of the cars (Tesla has sold 100% of its production,) lack of range (now up to nearly 300 miles,) lack of charging network (Tesla built one itself) and charging time (now only 20 minutes.) It would be shortsighted to think that the creativity which has made Tesla a success so far will suddenly disappear. And thus remarkably thoughtless to base an analysis on the industry as it exists today, rather than how it might well look in 3, 5 and 10 years.
The combination of Tesla and SolarCity allows Tesla to have all the components to pursue greater future success. Investors with sufficient risk appetite are justified in supporting this merger because they will be positioned to receive the future rewards of this pioneering change in the auto and electric utility industries.
by Adam Hartung | Sep 16, 2016 | Leadership
Donald Trump has been campaigning on how poorly America’s economy is doing. Yet, the headlines don’t seem to align with that position. Today we learned that U.S. household net worth climbed by over $1trillion in the second quarter. Rising stock values and rising real estate values made up most of the gain. And owners’ equity in their homes grew to 57.1%, highest in over a decade. Simultaneously this week we learned that middle-class earnings rose for the first time since the Great Recession, and the poverty rate fell by 1.2 percentage points.
Gallup reminded us this month that the percentage of Americans who perceive they are “thriving” has increased consistently the last 8 years, from 48.9% to 55.4%. And Pew informed us that across the globe, respect for Americans has risen the last 8 years, doubling in many countries such as Britain, Germany and France – and reaching as high as 84% favorability in Isreal.
Meanwhile Oxford Economics projected that a Republican/Trump Presidency would knock $1trillion out of America’s economy, and lower the GDP by 5%, mostly due to trade and tax policies. These would be far-reaching globally, likely not only creating a deep recession in America, but quite possibly the first global recession. But a Clinton Presidency should maintain a 1.5%-2.3% annual GDP growth rate.
I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the author of “Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box,” Bob Deitrick. Bob contributed to my 2012 article on Democrats actually being better for the economy than Republicans, despite popular wisdom to the contrary.
AH – Bob, there are a lot of people saying that the Obama Presidency was bad for the economy. Is that true?
Deitrick – To the contrary Adam, the Obama Presidency has economically been one of the best in modern history. Let’s start by comparing stock market performance, an indicator of investor sentiment about the economy using average annual compounded growth rates:
DJIA S&P 500 NASDAQ
Obama 11.1% 13.2% 17.7%
Bush -3.1% -5.6% -7.1%
Clinton 16.0% 15.1% 18.8%
Bush 4.8% 5.3% 7.5%
Reagan 11.0% 10.0% 8.8%
As you can see, Democrats have significantly outperformed Republicans. If you had $10,000 in an IRA, during the 16 years of Democratic administrations it would have grown to $72,539. During the 16 years of Republican administrations it would have grown to only $14,986. That is almost a 5x better performance by Democrats.
Obama’s administration has recovered all losses from the Bush crash, and gained more. Looking back further, we can see this is a common pattern. All 6 of the major market crashes happened under Republicans – Hoover (1), Nixon (2), Reagan (1) and Bush (2). The worst crash ever was the 58% decline which happened in 17 months of 2007-2009, during the Bush administration. But we’ve had one of the longest bull market runs in Presidential history under Obama. Consistency, stability and predictability have been recent Democratic administration hallmarks, keeping investors enthusiastic.
AH – But what about corporate profits?
Deitrick – During the 8 years of Reagan’s administration, the best for a Republican, corporate profits grew 26.82%. During the last 8 years corporate profits grew 55.79%. It’s hard to see how Mr. Trump identifies poor business conditions in America during Obama’s administration.
AH – What about jobs?
Deitrick – Since the recession ended in September, 2010 America has created 14,226,00 new jobs. All in, including the last 2 years of the Great Recession, Obama had a net increase in jobs of 10,545,000. Compare this to the 8 years of George W. Bush, who created 1,348,000 jobs and you can see which set of policies performed best.
AH – What about the wonkish stuff, like debt creation? Many people are very upset at the large amount of debt added the last 8 years.
Deitrick – All debt has to be compared to the size of the base. Take for example a mortgage. Is a $1million mortgage big? To many it seems huge. But if that mortgage is on a $5million house, it is only 20% of the asset, so not that large. Likewise, if the homeowner makes $500,000 a year it is far less of an issue (2x income) than if the homeowner made $50,000/year (20x income.)
The Reagan administration really started the big debt run-up. During his administration national debt tripled – increased 300%. This was an astounding increase in debt. And the economy was much smaller then than today, so the debt as a percent of GDP doubled – from 31.1% to 62.2%%. This was the greatest peacetime debt increase in American history.
During the Obama administration total debt outstanding increased by 63.5% – which is just 20% of the debt growth created during the Reagan administration. As a percent of GDP the debt has grown by 28% – just about a quarter of the 100% increase during Reagan’s era. Today we have an $18.5trillion economy, 4 to 6 times larger than the $3-$5trillion economy of the 1980s. Thus, the debt number may appear large, but it is nothing at all as important, or an economic drag, as the debt added by Republican Reagan.
Digging into the details of the Obama debt increase (for the wonks,) out of a total of $8.5trillion added 70% was created by 2 policies implemented by Republican Bush. Ongoing costs of the Afghanistan war has accumulated to $3.6trillion, and $2.9trillion came from the Bush tax cuts which continued into 2003. Had these 2 Republican originated policies not added drastically to the country’s operating costs, debt increases would have been paltry compared to the size of the GDP. So it hasn’t been Democratic policies, like ACA (Affordable Care Act), or even the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act which has led to home values returning to pre-crisis levels, that created recent debt, but leftover activities tied to Republican Bush’s foray into Afghanistan and Republican policies of cutting taxes (mostly for the wealthy.)
Since Reagan left office the U.S. economy has grown by $13.5trillion. 2/3 of that (67%) happened during Clinton and Obama (Democrats) with only 1/3 happening during Bush and Bush (Republicans.)
AH – What about public sentiment? Listening to candidate Trump one would think Americans are extremely unhappy with President Obama.
Deitrick – The U.S. Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index was at a record high 118.9 when Democrat Clinton left office. Eight years later, ending Republican Bush’s administration, that index was at a record low 26.8. Today that index is at 101.1. Perhaps candidate Trump should be reminded of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous quote “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Candidate Trump’s rhetoric makes it sound like Americans live in a crime-filled world – all due to Democrats. But FBI data shows that violent crime has decreased steadily since 1990 – from 750 incidents per 100,000 people to about 390 today. Despite the rhetoric, Americans are much safer today than in the past. Interestingly, however, violent crime declined 10.2% in the second Bush’s 8 year term. But during the Clinton years violent crime dropped 34%, and during the Obama administration violent crime has dropped 17.8%. Democratic policies of adding federal money to states and local communities has definitely made a difference in crime.
Despite the blistering negativity toward ACA, 20million Americans are insured today that weren’t insured previously. That’s almost 6.25% of the population now with health care coverage – a cost that was previously born by taxpayers at hospital emergency rooms.
AH – Final thoughts?
Deitrick – We predicted that the Obama administration would be a great boon for Americans, and it has. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who obtain media coverage due to antics, loud voices, and access obtained via wealth that have spewed false information. When one looks at the facts, and not just opinions, it is clear that like all administrations the last 90 years Democrats have continued to be far better economic stewards than Republicans.
It is important people know the facts. For example, it would have kept an investor in this great bull market – rather than selling early on misplaced fear. It would have helped people to understand that real estate would regain its lost value. And understand that the added debt is not a great economic burden, especially at the lowest interest rates in American history.
[Author’s note: Bob Deitrick is CEO of Polaris Financial Partners, a private investment firm in suburban Columbus, Ohio. His firm uses economic and political tracking as part of its analysis to determine the best investments for his customers – and is proud to say they have remained long in the stock market throughout the Obama administration gains. For more on their analysis and forecasts contact PolarsFinancial.net]
by Adam Hartung | Sep 14, 2016 | Immigration, In the Rapids, Innovation, Telecom, Trends
I’m amazed about Americans’ debate regarding immigration. And all the rhetoric from candidate Trump about the need to close America’s borders.
I was raised in Oklahoma, which prior to statehood was called The Indian Territory. I was raised around the only real Native Americans. All the rest of us are immigrants. Some voluntarily, some as slaves. But the fact that people want to debate whether we allow people to become Americans seems to me somewhat ridiculous, since 98% of Americans are immigrants. The majority within two generations.
Throughout America’s history, being an immigrant has been tough. The first ones had to deal with bad weather, difficult farming techniques, hostile terrain, wild animals – it was very difficult. As time passed immigrants continued to face these issues, expanding westward. But they also faced horrible living conditions in major cities, poor food, bad pay, minimal medical care and often abuse by the people already that previously immigrated.
And almost since the beginning, immigrants have been not only abused but scammed. Those who have resources frequently took advantage of the newcomers that did not. And this persists. Immigrants that lack a social security card are unable to obtain a driver’s license, unable to open bank accounts, unable to apply for credit cards, unable to even sign up for phone service. Thus they remain at the will of others to help them, which creates the opportunity for scamming.
Take for example an immigrant trying to make a phone call to his relatives back home. For most immigrants this means using a calling card. Only these cards are often a maze of fees, charges and complex rules that result in much of the card’s value being lost. A 10-minute call to Ghana can range from $2.86 to $8.19 depending on which card you use. This problem is so bad that the FCC has fined six of the largest card companies for misleading consumers about calling cards. They continue to advise consumers about fraud. And even Congress has held hearings on the problem.
One outcome of immigrants’ difficulties has been the ingenuity and innovativeness of Americans. To this day around the world people marvel at how clever Americans are, and how often America leads the world in developing new things. As a young country, and due to the combination of resources and immigrants’ tough situation, America frequently is first at developing new solutions to solve problems – many of which are problems that clearly affect the immigrant population.
So, back to that phone call. Some immigrants can use Microsoft Skype to talk with their relatives, using the Internet rather than a phone. But this requires the people back home have a PC and an internet connection. Both of which could be dicey. Another option would be to use something like Facebook’s WhatsApp, but this requires the person back home have either a PC or mobile device, and either a wireless connection or mobile coverage. And, again, this is problematic.
But once again, ingenuity prevails. A Romanian immigrant named Daniel Popa saw this problem, and set out to make communications better for immigrants and their families back home. In 2014 he founded QuickCall.com to allow users to make a call over wireless technology, but which can then interface with the old-fashioned wired (or wireless) telecom systems around the world. No easy task, since telephone systems are a complex environment of different international, national and state players that use a raft of different technologies and have an even greater set of complicated charging systems.
But this new virtual phone network, which links the internet to the traditional telecom system, is a blessing for any immigrant who needs to contact someone in a rural, or poor, location that still depends on phone service. If the person on the other end can access a WiFi system, then the calls are free. If the connection is to a phone system then the WiFi interface on the American end makes the call much cheaper – and performs far, far better than any other technology. QuickCall has built the carrier relationships around the world to make the connections far more seamless, and the quality far higher.
But like all disruptive innovations, the initial market (immigrants) is just the early adopter with a huge need. Being able to lace together an internet call to a phone system is pretty powerful for a lot of other users. Travelers heading to a remote location, like Micronesia, Africa or much of South America — and even Eastern Europe – can lower the cost of planning their trip and connect with locals by using QuickCall.com. And for most Americans traveling in non-European locations their cell phone service from Sprint, Verizon, AT&T or another carrier simply does not work well (if at all) and is very expensive when they arrive. QuickCall.com solves that problem for these travelers.
Small businesspeople who have suppliers, or customers, in these locations can use QuickCall.com to connect with their business partners at far lower cost. Businesses can even have their local partners obtain a local phone number via QuickCall.com and they can drive the cost down further (potentially to zero). This makes it affordable to expand the offshore business, possibly even establishing small scale customer support centers at the local supplier, or distributor, location.
In The Innovator’s Dilemma Clayton Christensen makes the case that disruptive innovations develop by targeting a customer with an unmet need. Usually the innovation isn’t as good as the current “standard,” and is also more costly. Today, making an international call through the phone system is the standard, and it is fairly cheap. But this solution is often unavailable to immigrants, and thus QuickCall.com fills their unmet need, and at a cost substantially lower than the infamous calling cards, and with higher quality than a pure WiFi option.
But now that it is established, and expanding to more countries – including developed markets like the U.K. – the technology behind QuickCall.com is becoming more mainstream. And its uses are expanding. And it is reducing the need for people to have international calling service on their wired or wireless phone because the available market is expanding, the quality is going up, and the cost is going down. Exactly the way all disruptive innovations grow, and thus threaten the entrenched competition.
The end-game may be some form of Facebook in-app solution. But that depends on Facebook or one of its competitors seizing this opportunity quickly, and learning all QuickCall.com already knows about the technology and customers, and building out that network of carrier relationships. Notice that Skype was founded in 2003, and acquired by Microsoft in 2011, and it still doesn’t have a major presence as a telecom replacement. Will a social media company choose to make the investment and undertake developing this new solution?
As small as QuickCall.com is – and even though you may have never heard of it – it is an example of a disruptive innovation that has been successfully launched, and is successfully expanding. It may seem like an impossibility that this company, founded by an immigrant to solve an unmet need of immigrants, could actually change the way everyone makes international calls. But, then again, few of us thought the iPhone and its apps would cause us to give up Blackberries and quit carrying our PCs around.
America is known for its ingenuity and innovations. We can thank our heritage as immigrants for this, as well as the immigrant marketplace that spurs new innovation. America’s immigrants have the need to succeed, and the unmet needs that create new markets for launching new solutions. For all those conservatives who fear “European socialism,” they would be wise to realize the tremendous benefits we receive from our immigrant population. Perhaps these naysayers should use QuickCall.com to connect with a few more immigrants and understand the benefits they bring to America.
