Changing Demography and Your Future

Barrack Obama is said to be scrambling for victories in this the first year of his presidency. It seemed up until last week that the health care reform bill that he championed would pass and make history. Republican Scott Brown ended that dream with a solid come from behind win of Ted Kennedy’s former United States Senate seat in Massachusetts. The White House has now gone silent on that issue and any mention of any other victory. In fact President Obama seems to have resorted back to his only presidential victory by ceremoniously reopening his campaign for president, a year and two months after he won. There is an irony here that is puzzling. President Obama may be overlooking an epic victory, a historic victory really that is right under his nose. 

From October 28 to November 30, 2009 the Pew Research Center conducted a new comprehensive nationwide survey on race among a nationally representative sample of 2,884 adults that included 812 blacks. The results of the poll are nothing less than astounding.

In spite of a dismal economy, fighting two current wars and 200 plus years record of inequality most blacks for the first time in the history of the United States feel that the state of black progress in America has improved dramatically. Isn’t this more important than health care reform? Haven’t we just witnessed and experienced a victory in a centuries old war on bigotry? Isn’t this what Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Junior dreamed of but never realized in their life time?Pew States “Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism among African Americans. It may also be reflected in an upbeat set of black views on a range of other matters, including race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress.” 

It is not a mystery to anyone that blacks are especially hard hit in our current recession. Yet with Barack Obama in the white house the spirit of blacks is at an all time high.

Nearly double the number of blacks of all age groups and income levels, now (39%) as in 2007 (20%), state that the “situation of black people in this country” has improved over five years ago. And blacks are even more optimistic when questioned about the future. According to Pew: “More than half (53%) say that life for blacks in the future will be better than it is now, while just 10% say it will be worse. In 2007, 44% said things would be better for blacks in the future, while 21% said they would be worse.” More than half is most. Think about it. Most African Americans think the problem of racial inequality is on its way to being solved. This is a very serious issue that has been festering for hundreds of years. The majority of the minority culture that has born the brunt of the inequality is clearly seeing a future solution for the first time in history. Why aren’t we jumping up and down?  

Most blacks (54%) believe that it was Obama’s barrier breaking election win that improved race relations in the United States; only 7% stated that Obama’s win made things worse. So is President Obama spending too much time on black issues at the expense of whites? Not according to Pew’s research: “For example, only a small share of whites (13%) say Obama has been paying too much attention to the concerns of blacks.”

Are blacks and whites becoming more and more alike with similar values and living standards? The research would suggest yes. “Seven-in-ten whites (70%) and six-in-ten blacks (60%) say that the values held by blacks and whites have become more similar in the past 10 years. Similarly, a majority of blacks (56%) and nearly two-thirds of whites (65%) say the standard of living gap between whites and blacks has narrowed in the past decade.” Is this wishful thinking or the real thing? Time will tell but the perception is genuine and supported by the research.  

So is the racial issued solved? Are we living in Post Racial America as some have called it? The real proof of the pudding is found in the chart below. There is still a wide gap between blacks and whites in household income. This has to change to make perception become reality. 

We believe the change is coming.  And yes there are two other critical issues that must be addressed: crime and family. 

African Americans still make up for nearly half the crime in the United States, half the inmates in prison. African Americans make up only 14% of our total population. There are more blacks in jail than in college. 

Seventy-five percent of all black babies are born without a accountable male to take responsibility. Black marriages are the exception. This culture’s model of the family unit is nothing short of disastrous. 

Can these two fundamental core issues be addressed and corrected? We believe they can and in fact are being addressed. The real unknown is the enormous psychological effect the Obama family in the White House will have on the black culture going forward. As the family issue corrects, and it will, the crime solution will follow. 

So if President Obama is frantically searching for a victory to validate his tenor in the White house we would urge him to look no further than the rapid and historic advance of the black culture.

Ford’s Success is Generation Y

Could it really be that simple? We have stated before that Detroit overall misunderstood the new emerging market that Japan nailed, namely Generation Y. Generation Y (born 1985 to 2004) is actually bigger than the Baby Boomer Generation. So what could Generation Y’s attraction to Ford be?  There are actually three principal attractions and you can drive two of them, the Ford Mustang and the ubiquitous F150 Ford pick-up truck. Yes, for years the best selling car in the world has actually been a truck. How did such a simple fact get by us? Chevrolet does not have a Generation Y vehicle and neither does Chrysler, nothing. Not one. Ford has two. The third attraction is Ford’s marketing.

According to an Advertising Age story of November 2, 2009 Ford not only turned down Obama’s money but Ford’s Vice –president of Global Marketing Jim Farley has been busy stealing market share away from Chrysler and General Motors. According to the article Farley has simply made Ford’s brand greener than the competition. The article states “One example: He's upped Ford's green image with a push early this year for the 2010 Fusion Hybrid. Mr. Farley, who reports to President-CEO Alan Mullaly and who is also operations chief for Canada, Mexico and South America, is driving Ford into major social media and experiential plays.”  Hot selling cars, social media, green car marketing and a 25% of the Ford one billion dollar ad spend on digital media and you have a formula for capturing Generation Y. Have you driven a Ford lately? Generation Y has.

Should Environmentalists Run The World? 

The United Nation’s Copenhagen Conference has showcased the need to examine individual countries’ contribution to the perceived problem of global warming. It would follow then that great minds worldwide would then develop strategies to solve the problem and save the planet. An unexpected hero has emerged in this process and even though China has serious issues with its polluting industries and coal fired plants, its “one child only policy” is being heralded as a final solution in reducing the nations carbon foot print. In a December 8, 2009 article Financial Post.com declares over population as the real “inconvenient truth” and that China’s policy needs to be considered by all nations.

China has effectively reduced its fertility by 70% over the last thirty years and by its own numbers has prevented over 400,000,000 live births, bringing its population under control. Some environmental experts in Copenhagen have suggested that China could well be the model for the rest of the world and that a worldwide “one child only policy”   is the only answer to reversing global warming and correcting its real cause, over-population.

While the logic of reducing world population to control air pollution and global warming appears to have merit, environmentalists apparently have missed important economic factors. World renowned demographer, Nicholas Eberstadt, in a recent interview with The Age Curve Report, takes a counter-intuitive view of China’s dramatic drop in fertility. He stated simply that there is no nation in recorded history that has reduced its fertility, as China has, that has survived. China’s burgeoning market economy will have difficulty meeting its labor needs because they have effectively cut their future labor force by 70%. In addition China has all but eliminated future indigenous consumers that are so vital to their growth. Most Demographers and  even some economists throughout the world are warning of China’s inevitable economic collapse, a high price to pay for any nation seeking a solution to environmental issues.

Maybe they should have just cleaned up their dirty coal plants.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/10/content_9151129.htm

http://www.financialpost.com:80/story.html?id=2314438

The huge Generation Y, born 1985 to 2004, is now making its mark in college enrollment as the share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a surge in enrollments at community colleges, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Generation Y would make its presence know in this arena because one of the early peaks in the Generation Y birth data came in 1990 with well over four million live births. These kids are now nineteen years old and ripe for college. Age Curve Consulting has bee watching the consumption of this “bigger than the Baby Boomer “generation very closely and Generation Y has not disappointed us. According to Pew Research Center almost 11.5 million students or about 40% of all Generation Y young adults ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in college as of October 2008 (Newest data available). Both the total number and the percentage are the highest ever. The spike in junior college would follow as the four year schools have their pick of the best and brightest and the two year schools take the overflow. In 2007 there were 3.1 million young adults in community colleges but by 2008 that number had swelled by 300,000 students or 11.8% of all the 18 to 24 year olds. Enrollment in the four year schools remained flat during this same period.

So what is the employment picture for these 18- to 24- years- olds? It’s bleak. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics only 46.1% of them were employed as of September 2009, the lowest number ever since this data has been gathered starting in 1946.

The trend to two year community colleges has its financial advantages. Compared to four year public colleges the cost is on average a third less and compared to four year private schools the cost is about two thirds less (College Board, 2009). Is the trend to the cheaper college a product, at least in part, of the recession? Yes, without a doubt.

Is there a silver lining to this grey cloud of high unemployment and difficult economy for the large beleaguered Generation Y? Yes, for one they are graduating high school and attending college in record numbers. Education is a good thing. So if they can’t find work let them stay in school. The economy will rebound especially as China begins to falter because of its ill-fated one child only policy and manufacturing begins to find its way back to the States as China runs out of labor. The United States will have the biggest, best and most educated labor force in its history, another good thing. There’s more. Back in the early 1980’s when the 1957 peak of the Baby Boomers found the employment and economic climate to be very unfriendly what did they do? They opened their own businesses by the millions, so they could eat. Necessity is the mother of invention. We can’t wait to see what Generation Y will invent as they face the same challenges.