Demographics captivate me. There are around 7.1 billion of us occupying planet earth today, going to 10 billion by 2050. I often think about how good old mother earth will cope with the additional 3 billion people we are projected to produce between now and 2050. More people translate into increased pressure on already scarce resources, but that is only part of the story and a story well covered by now.

From an investment point of view, it is more interesting that over 150 million people from around the world join the middle classes each year. The Brookings Institution reckons that about 2 billion people can be classified as middle class today. By 2030, Asia alone will be the home of 3 billion middle class people, and the global middle classes will be approaching 5 billion, 90% of whom will come from countries we today consider EM economies. In other words, less than 20 years from now, Asia will have 10 times more middle class citizens than North America and 5 times more than Europe.

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