Fortune (January 20)
“Two-thirds of the world’s population already lives in countries where fertility is below” the replacement rate (an average fertility rate of 2.1 children per female). “Some of those economies are on track to see 20%-50% population declines by 2100, requiring big changes to societies and governments.” Younger people will also face a growing burden. “The world’s support ratio was 9.4 in 1997, or more than nine working-age people supporting one older person,” but this is expected to drop to just 3.9 by 2050 and currently stands at 6.5.
Tags: 1997, 2050, 2100, Burden, Children, Economies, Fertility, Governments, Population declines, Replacement rate, Support ratio, Two-thirds, Working-age
Time (October 12)
Of the Antarctica’s “162 ice shelves, 68 show significant shrinking between 1997 and 2021, while 29 grew, 62 didn’t change and three lost mass but not in a way scientists can say shows a significant trend” according to a new study. “All told, Antarctic ice shelves lost about 8.3 trillion tons (7.5 trillion metric tons) of ice in the 25-year period….That amounts to around 330 billion tons (300 billion metric tons) a year.”
Tags: 1997, 2021, Antarctica, Ice shelves, Mass, Scientists, Significant shrinking, Trend
Wall Street Journal (November 1)
The European Union’s statistics agency released figures that surprised most economists. “Consumer prices were 10.7% higher in October than a year earlier.” This marks “the fastest rate of increase since records began in 1997, two years before the euro was launched,” while at the national level “Germany’s measure of inflation was the highest since December 1951.”
Tags: 10.7%, 1997, Consumer prices, Economists, EU, euro, Fastest, Germany, Highest, Increase, Inflation, October, Records, Statistics agency, Surprised
The Atlantic (February 4, 2014)
“Lehman conditioned us to always look for the next domino. But sometimes a falling currency is just a falling currency.” Since last May when then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke mentioned tapering, “emerging market currencies have been in a world of pain.” But fundamentals are much stronger than before the Asian Currency Crisis so this needn’t be a repeat of 1997. “The danger isn’t slumping currencies. The danger is overreacting to slumping currencies.”
Tags: 1997, Asian Currency Crisis, Ben Bernanke, Currency, Emerging markets, Fed, Fundamentals, Lehman, Overreacting, Tapering
