I was asked again the other day what the “theme” of this blog is. It can sometimes seem like a collection of rambling musings on the world. Well…
Besides being just that, it is really the place that the network at TomorrowToday.biz put all their musings on the world. This is part of what we do at TomorrowToday – we track societal trends, trying to spot patterns and identify futures and scenarios.
Every now and again, we get glimpses of how major forces combine to shape societies and destinies globally. One such thought hit me today, and it brings together things we say around retiring Boomers, globalisation, governments, investment opportunities, emerging markets, and much more. Its a simple, yet profound thought.
Europe and the USA have promised their pensioners remarkable amounts of money. Their governments do not have enough cash to make these payments. As the Baby Boomers (born 1946 and later) start to retire, this cash crunch will start to hurt. Besides raising taxes, the only other way to get the cash required will be to reduce other government expenditure. The most obvious place to do this is in subsidies paid by these governments.
There is increasing pressure from world bodies for these governments to get rid of agricultural subsidies in particular. It would seem to be a fairly obvious and easy decision to make, to deal with increasing pension payment issues and increasing world market pressures in one stroke of the pen. And dismantle agricultural subsidies. Not such a nice future for farmers who have come to rely on these subsidies for their livelihood, as many have.
This will work perfectly for those emerging market countries that have “spare” agricultural land and capacity (like South Africa, Brazil and China), but currently simply cannot compete on the international stage because of the subsidies in Europe and the USA in particular. With subsidies reduced, these countries will find agricultural exports to be more viable, and will in turn receive huge boosts to their economies. A rosy future indeed, if they’re geared up for it.
Interestingly all three of these emerging market countries mentioned are experimenting extensively with genetically modified crops, which may then hinder their access to the markets that will open up. Or, they need to start working now to ensure they change public perceptions about GM.
So, yes, a middle manager retiring in Dresden, Germany does have an impact on a maize farmer in Bloemfontein, South Africa. It might not quite be butterfly’s wings causing hurricanes, but it is nevertheless a global chain of events that is upon us now.
Links in a chain: How it all fits together
Thanks Graeme – A really interesting and challenging thought. One aspect I would like to pick up from your blog is the concept of identifying and watching societal trends. I am really interested to see where such trends come from – are we as South Africans recipients of trends coming out of the US? This appears to be the case on some fronts, like the entertainment media and music. On the other hand some of the issues arising in Europe impact the prevalent ideas in Southern Africa. An example here is the recent Pew Research Centre report (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/278/a-portrait-of-generation-next) on 18-25 year olds which revealed that more and more young people are living at home until a later age. This seems to be the same scenario for Southern Africa, which poses some challenging questions for us. If young people are living at home for longer, then they are getting married and having children at a later age. What impact will this have on schooling and parenting over the coming years.
I would be interested to hear from you how you follow societal trends – what do you measure. In a discussion with author and trend-spotter Lennard Sweet recently, I asked him how he identified coming trends. His response was that he would walk into a bookstore or newsagent and randomly pick ten magazines which he would then read and study. He would then look for commonalities between what these magazines are covering. An interesting idea … Do you know of any organization doing qualitative or quantitative research on societal trends in Africa?