May 14 2024
Eliminating retirement?
1 America in midst of startup boom
2 World population may begin to shrink soon
3 ELECTION 2024 Trump leads in Battlegrounds but Democrats lead down ballot: poll
4 Increasing longevity will transform society
5 Cartels kill, pick winners in Mexican elections
5/14/1804 Lewis and Clark depart to explore the Northwest
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1 America in midst of startup boom
Although America has a deserved reputation as a country at the cutting-edge of innovation, fuelled by entrepreneurial vim, in recent years some economists have worried that this reputation no longer holds true. Startups have formed a smaller and smaller portion of the business landscape: in 1982 some 38% of American firms were less than five years old; by 2018, 29% were that young. The share of Americans working for startups likewise fell. Silicon Valley sizzled with high-tech wizardry, but its giant companies hoarded the best researchers, leading to a slower spread of new ideas throughout the country. Researchers, including at the Federal Reserve, pointed to this decline in dynamism as a cause of weaker productivity growth. Suddenly, what was old appears to be new. An array of data indicate that Americans are rediscovering their go-getting spirit. The most striking evidence comes from applications to form businesses, a proxy for startup activity. These soared in mid-2020, when America was still in the grip of covid-19. The initial surge was easy to dismiss: some of the new firms were scams, trying to profit from the government’s financial assistance for small businesses; others reflected the strangeness of the moment, with companies set up to import face masks or flog hand sanitiser.
Economist
2 World population may begin to shrink soon
The world is at a startling demographic milestone. Sometime soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may have already happened. Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation. The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world’s superpowers. In high-income nations, fertility fell below replacement in the 1970s, and took a leg down during the pandemic. It’s dropping in developing countries, too. India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement. “The demographic winter is coming,” said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, an economist specializing in demographics at the University of Pennsylvania. Many government leaders see this as a matter of national urgency. They worry about shrinking workforces, slowing economic growth and underfunded pensions; and the vitality of a society with ever-fewer children. Smaller populations come with diminished global clout, raising questions in the U.S., China and Russia about their long-term standings as superpowers. Some demographers think the world’s population could start shrinking within four decades—one of the few times it’s happened in history.
WSJ
3 ELECTION 2024 Trump leads in Battlegrounds but Democrats lead down ballot: poll
The results in the presidential race would have been surprising a year ago, but it’s hard to call them surprising anymore. Donald J. Trump leads in five of the six states among likely voters, with Mr. Biden squeaking out a lead among likely voters in Michigan. (Among registered voters, Mr. Biden leads only in Wisconsin.) Mr. Trump’s strength is largely thanks to gains among young, Black and Hispanic voters.
What’s more surprising is the U.S. Senate results. This is the first time we’ve asked about Senate races this year, and the Democratic candidates led in all four of the states we tested: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. Not only do Democrats lead, but they also seem to do so in an entirely customary way, with ordinary levels of support from young and nonwhite voters, even as Mr. Biden struggles at the top of the ticket. Nevada was ground zero for this striking ticket splitting. Mr. Trump led the poll by a staggering 12 points among registered voters, thanks to an eye-popping nine-point lead among Hispanic voters and a 13-point lead among those 18 to 29. But in the Senate race, everything looks “normal.” The Democratic senator Jacky Rosen led her likeliest Republican challenger by two points among registered voters, including a 46-27 lead among those 18 to 29 and a 46-28 lead among Hispanics.
NYT
4 Increasing longevity will transform society
In the UK in 1965, the most common age of death was in the first year of life. Today the most common age to die is 87 years old. This startling statistic comes from a remarkable new book, The Longevity Imperative, by Andrew Scott of the London Business School. He notes, too, that a newborn girl in Japan has a 96 per cent chance of making it to 60, while Japanese women have a life expectancy of nearly 88. Japan is exceptional. But we are living longer everywhere: global life expectancy is now 76 for women and 71 for men (clearly, the weaker sex). This new world has been created by the collapse in death rates of the young. Back in 1841, 35 per cent of male children were dead before they reached 20 in the UK and 77 per cent did not survive to 70. By 2020, these figures had fallen to 0.7 and 21 per cent, respectively. We have largely defeated the causes of early death, by means of cleaner food and water, vaccination and antibiotics. I remember when polio was a great threat. It is almost entirely gone, as is the once vastly greater peril of smallpox.
It is going to be necessary to work longer as a matter of course. This is also going to require several changes in one’s career over a lifetime. Instead of one period of education, one of work and one of retirement, it will make sense for people to mix the three up. People will go back to study, repeatedly. They will take breaks, repeatedly. They will change what they do, repeatedly. This is the way to make longevity affordable and, as important, bearable. To make such a world work, we will have to reorganise education, work, pensions, welfare states and health systems. People will no longer, for example, go to university or receive training only as young adults. This will be a lifetime activity. Again, mandatory or standard retirement ages will be senseless. People must be given options to work and not to do so at various stages of their lives. Just raising retirement ages all round is both inefficient and inequitable since life expectancy is so unevenly distributed. Contribution rates to pensions will also need to be changed. Today they are generally too low. Health systems must also fully incorporate public health, which will become ever more important as society ages.
FT
Axios
5 Cartels kill, pick winners in Mexican elections
Organized crime groups are turning Mexico’s elections into a literal battleground, making the campaign this year one of the deadliest in the country’s modern history. More than two dozen candidates have been killed leading up to the June 2 vote; hundreds have dropped out of the race. More than 400 have asked the federal government for security details. The campaign of intimidation and assassination is putting democracy itself at risk. The armed groups’ goal is to install friendly leaders in local offices so they can better exploit Mexican communities. Once largely focused on shipping drugs to the United States, the cartels now also smuggle migrants, extort businesses and win contracts for firms they control. They want to name towns’ police chiefs and public works directors. That makes controlling mayor’s offices crucial. But candidates for governor and Congress are at risk, too. In some areas, cartels wield so much power they can decide who can enter towns — or even what people may say out loud.
WaPo
5/14/1804 Lewis and Clark depart to explore the Northwest
Sources
[2]https://www.wsj.com/world/birthrates-global-decline-cause-ddaf8be2?mod=hp_lead_pos7
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/upshot/polling-biden-battlegrounds-senate.html
[4]https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-88d3d2e5-aea0-4195-8973-c3a16d6d0dc3.html?chunk=0&utm_campaign=axios_app#story0; https://www.ft.com/content/a8f33209-3507-4364-98be-61b3bb464fbb
[5]https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/11/mexico-election-candidates-killed-violence/
Thanks for reading!
