[Cowperson]

The rise and fall of certain populations will certainly create stresses in the next 50 years.

However, we should remember that 60 years is a long time and the population shifts we talk about today may well have come and gone.

I think, as an example, that 2030 is roughly the peak for the baby boomer retirement drag on the USA while China may have the problem linger longer. By 2060, both countries may have demographically younger populations and the USA has always had a very vigourous immigration policy.

Simultaneously, with the collapse of radical Islam and a more mature, better-educated, more economically engaged, more secularized Islamic world emerging, I would wonder if the Islamic world and it's rabid birthrate may see an aging population drag - the same curse America is going to experience - showing up by 2040 and beyond.

China's population is already peaking out . . . . . . and they have the same problem with an older demographic that other, significant global economies are facing.

India has been a sort of tortoise through this but, in the end, they could be a more dominant military and economic power than China.

Japan is one of the most racially homogenous societies on Earth, with little immigration . . . . . and has no hope of reversing a decline in its population.

Russia and the rest of Europe, unless overrun by the Islamic hordes immigrating there, will be lesser powers.

We saw in this last economic cycle that there is a certain price area where fossil fuels become uncompetitive and people refuse to pay, instead looking for alternatives.

You will see that trend continue, where market forces eventually push alternatives to fossil fuels forward and innovative technologies do the same for inputs of consumer products.

Mankind being what it is, we will continue to punish the planet on the ecological front, driven particularly by the lack of caring outside of the major democracies. Death rates from ecological-caused distress will soar . . . . . as one example, blankets of smog smothering the Far East, something we've already seen.

The planet will continue to be paved and the 600 million new Americans created in the last economic surge will be nothing compared to the future, where enhanced globalization, while creating peace in general through the world as mutual interests become inextricably entwined, will also enhance consumerism in countries that haven't experienced it yet.

We are already seeing that radical Islam is a self-defeating organism and I think it will be only a marginal irritance 50 years from now.

I think biotechnology and stem-cell research in particular will extend life spans beyond our imagination. Us older chaps may not see the benefit of that but those of you in your 20's probably will. It would not surprise me at all if, by the end of this century, the average life span on a global basis extends beyond 100 years of age. Well, maybe it would surprise me because I would be more than 140 years old if I were around to witness that.

Some of-the-cuff thoughts.

Cowperson