The Future of Who’s Rich
The United States of 3rd More momentous change is coming, folks. When people think about who’s got the most dosh in the world, people tend to think about the United States of America as being the fiscal powerhouse at the top of the tree. All things come to pass, little-giants. All empires fall. All kings topple. All establishments crumble. The British Empire was once the largest ever and the nation was incredibly affluent. By 2050, it will be the 10th richest nation by GDP. If you recall, GDP is all of the money made in a country combined. At the moment, the United States has the world’s largest economy as its GDP is the same size as China’s economy (second place) PLUS Japan’s economy (in 3rd).
As a consequence of this humongous fiscal economy, the United States has immense influence and power around the world. It can use financial clout to encourage other countries to act in a certain way and it can punish countries for disobeying. It’s essentially a giant parent. However, China is catching up and will soon overtake the U.S By 2050, India is projected to be 2nd, the U.S will be 3rd, and Indonesia will be 4th. Who would have thunk it? The key point is, countries with growing populations are going to also see their GDPs swell, too! It’s all about babies and technology In the past, two things were very true. It was really difficult to stay alive and overcome the disease, hunger, wild rabbits, and other predatory threats. Two things changed. Technology and science allowed more babies to be born with better medical equipment and we were able to produce more food for babies to eat. Now, we have a world of young people growing up with tons of radically useful technology. And guess what? Our world is dominated by technology. A hundred years ago, only the very, very rich or very, very fortunate were able to go and get a university education. Now, university is far more accessible and it’s going to become even more open to the world because of technology.
You can literally learn ANYTHING you want on the internet…like… How to Draw an Alpaca. Previously, few people knew what one was, didn’t have the time to draw one, and had no way of making money from this very particular skill. These days, you could draw it and sell the image. You could print it on t-shirts. You could even sell an NFT card (*Note - NFTs are images that don’t actually exist except on the internet, that people crazily sell to other people). That’s now, but imagine in 2050 what will be possible to do online. Therefore, our world is going to become almost unrecognisable when all of these young people grow up living with rapidly accelerating technology. They’ll make truckloads of money with it. They’ll change the world. You’ll change the world.
Everyone will be flush - kind of
The world is getting fiscally flush. The world economy (all of the money produced by all of the countries combined) could double by 2050. All of the money in the world could be totally doubled. Just imagine if that happened inside your family economy - you’d be naturally delighted. If the world economy doubles, in a way, everyone wins and profits. If you look here, you’ll see how poverty around the world (defined as living on less than $1.90 per day) has declined almost every single year: https://devinit.org/resources/poverty-trends-global-regional-and-national/
The number of people living in extreme poverty has halved in the past 10 years. However, what does everything really cost? If you have $5 per day or $10 per day, you’re still hanging on economically. By 2050, millions and millions of people will still be struggling to afford the things we never even think about. Nonetheless, invariably, when GDP grows, people tend to be lifted out of poverty, like they have been in India and China over the past 50 years. If only we could share it a bit more.
How about you?
Perhaps this is the most vital question to ask because we all consider ourselves rather quickly. Don’t feel guilty. It’s a survival mechanism. Imagine if your primate ancestors had worried about the primate in the next tree! You wouldn’t be here. After we take care of ourselves, then our brain gives us some space to think about others.
The lesson from this Big Idea can be whatever lesson you choose, but I like to think the lesson is that YOU can do YOU. You have a world of limitless possibilities without geographic boundaries. You can invent, you can help, you can think, you can create ANYTHING you choose. Embrace being young and go for it.
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