Book Review: The Age Curve by Kenneth W. Gronbach

Kenneth Gronbach has written The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm as a study of likely future effects on markets and products based on statistics, particularly demographics, using especially the U.S. Census information from 1905 to 2005.

The author describes interesting examples of demographics (such as changes in motorcycle sales) while also looking at the differences in generations, including unexpected views such as Generation X not being slackers, but rather simply smaller. He opines that this group is too small to buy Baby Boomers' houses and this helped cause the housing crisis. he also sees the demographic shrinkage from the Baby Boomers to generation X sealing doom for Social Security. He also sees a potential shortage of managers and skilled labor due to Generation X being 11% smaller numerically than the Baby Boomers and with a higher percentage of college education.

Likewise, he looks at China and sees problems coming from the 1-child policy as workers age and can not be replaced or supported. If he is correct, China faces serious issues maintaining its key edge in seeking production work, cheap labor.

The book is an interesting read and presents an interesting preview of what may be ahead for the United States and the world.

Nearsourcing looks at as much information as possible in decision-making. Here, the author presents some very interesting trends, especially on China, that can greatly affect production site selections.

$24.95 from AMACOM Books
http://www.amanet.org/books/book.cfm?isbn=9780814401811

VIEW his blog at: http://kgcdirect.squarespace.com/journal/