{"id":212391,"date":"2010-01-22T09:07:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1"},"modified":"2010-01-22T09:07:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T14:07:00","slug":"stratfors-top-predictions-for-the-next-decade-china-collapse-global-labor-shortages-new-american-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/212391","title":{"rendered":"STRATFOR&#8217;S TOP PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEXT DECADE: China Collapse, Global Labor Shortages, New American Dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1\/china-doomed-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"float_right\" src=\"http:\/\/static.businessinsider.com\/image\/4b58d5f80000000000d3c117-284-213\/peter-zeihan-stratfor.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"peter zeihan stratfor\" width=\"284\" height=\"213\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"float: left; padding: 15px 15px 15px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ntweetmeme_source = ''; tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>What will the next decade bring for the world?<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;\">STRATFOR has the answers. In a<\/span><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stratfor.com\/memberships\/152578\/forecast\/20100120_decade_forecast_20102020\">Decade  Forecast<\/a> <\/em><\/span>released yesterday, the global  intelligence company predicts Chinese economic collapse, game-changing global labor shortages, and continued American dominance because of a gradual retreat from international engagement. Welcome to 2010.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1\/china-doomed-1\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>SEE ALL OF STRATFOR&#8217;S 2020 CALLS HERE&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We spoke with <span style=\"font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;\">Peter Zeihan, Vice President of Strategic Intelligence, about STRATFOR&#8217;s predictions, of which he was an author. Below are edited excerpts from our conversation. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>TBI: What are the broad  trends that Stratfor sees shaping the world in the next decade?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Zeihan<\/strong>:<\/em> Probably one of the biggest breaks that Stratfor has with  conventional wisdom is that most of the world is convinced that the  United States is a power in terminal decline. In fact we see the United States <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#iraq-and-afghanistan-us-out-7\">withdrawing  from its two wars<\/a>, regardless of whether or not they&#8217;ve ended, and  returning to a more balanced attention span in dealing with the rest of  the world.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the rest of the world will view that as an American  retreat from prominence and a sign that the U.S. is in decline once  again. But really when you&#8217;re a naval power and a merchant power, being  out of the Middle East is increasing greatly your power to act and you  willingness to act. So we see it as a very <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#america-dominant-in-retreat-15\">American-centric decade  moving forward<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Which predictions are most surprising?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Aside from the  United States not going anywhere, I would say we expect the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1\/china-doomed-1\">economic  collapse of China<\/a> in this coming decade. We&#8217;ve been talking for awhile  about how the economic system there is remarkably unstable and we think  that they&#8217;re going to reach a break point as all of the internal  inconsistencies come to light and shatter. By the end of the decade,  it&#8217;ll be pretty obvious to everybody that the China miracle is over. As  we enter the decade, people are finally, finally starting to talk about  China bubbles. If only their problem was that simple! <\/p>\n<p>With the Europeans, the new European treaty actually matters. The  Lisbon Treaty is the first of dozens of treaties that the EU has done,  but it&#8217;s the first one that actually does away with most of the single  member vetoes; and so you&#8217;ve got Germany actually able to force its will  upon a lot of states. Germany is going to be ascendant in a manner that  it has not been since the late 1930s! Doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s going to be  rolling tanks into Poland or anything like that, but they are going to  be using their institutional power to push everybody around.<\/p>\n<p>That is  going to cause a remarkable <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#europe-heightened-native-immigrant-tension-2\">degree of discord and unpredictability in  Europe<\/a>, and that is something that the Russians are going to take  advantage of every chance that they get. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#russia-scrambling-9\">Russians realize that  they&#8217;re in a race against the clock<\/a> before their demographics kill them  as a country, and so they want to make sure that they&#8217;ve got as wide of a  buffer as possible. As long as Europe is at each others throats, even  if its just with bureaucratic paper, the Russians are going to take  advantage of that to strengthen their western perimeter and push the  frontier into Europe as far as they can. They know in 20 or 30 years  they&#8217;re not going to be able to do much, so they want to buy as much  time and space as possible.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What does the American business community need to pay  closest attention to?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The business community is probably  going to get its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1\/china-doomed-1\">shirt handed to it over China<\/a>. Now American investment  into China is not nearly as robust as most people think. It&#8217;s actually  only five or six billion dollars every year, very, very small in the  grand scheme of things, even by Chinese standards. But the ability of  China to continue to supply cheap exports to the United States might  come into danger. Not on the whole, because all of the Chinese regional  cities will still have an interest in doing that, even once the Chinese  system cracks. But you&#8217;re going to have to pay very close attention to  your supply chain there as the politics of China become unglued.<\/p>\n<p>Japan &#8212; also a major investor in a lot of places, also a major  supplier of a lot technology and a lot of capital &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#japan-desperate-for-labor-11\">Japan&#8217;s  demographics are the worst in the world<\/a>. In the next decade, they&#8217;re  going to have to find some way to rectify the fact that they just don&#8217;t  have sufficient number of workers to supply what they need.<\/p>\n<p>They  could turn to their traditional surplus labor source, which is Korea  and China, in which case we could have some sort of East Asian conflict,  perhaps even military in nature. You have the world&#8217;s second or third  largest economies starting to duke it out in some manner, and  businessmen in America are going to take notice. Or at least they&#8217;d  better.<\/p>\n<p>In a broader demographic issue, all of the countries in the  developed world and most of them in the developing world are aging.  We&#8217;re going to be seeing a lot of countries maybe not start to have  their populations decline but certainly have them age and no longer  grow. The core economic platform that has driven the human condition for  the last millennia is that populations will continue to get larger,  markets will continue to get larger, there will be more capital  available. In this next decade that starts to invert. The cost of  capital is going to go up, the availability of markets are going to go  up, and that&#8217;s ultimately a deflationary environment. It&#8217;ll get  worse in future decades, but this next decade is when the rules of the  game start to change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1\/china-doomed-1\">See STRATFOR&#8217;s predictions for 2020 &gt;<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>See Also:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/top-sources-of-2010-pain-from-the-world-economic-forum-2010-1\">The 15 Costliest Financial And Political Risks Looming In The Next Decade<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/top-10-international-catastrophes-2009-12\">10 Looming Geopolitical Disasters<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/the-next-10-brics-2010-1\">The Next BRICs: Six Surging Countries You Must Pay Attention To This Decade<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/3m7RjVujU9Y\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What will the next decade bring for the world? &nbsp;STRATFOR has the answers. In a Decade Forecast released yesterday, the global intelligence company predicts Chinese economic collapse, game-changing global labor shortages, and continued American dominance because of a gradual retreat from international engagement. Welcome to 2010. SEE ALL OF STRATFOR&#8217;S 2020 CALLS HERE&gt;&gt;&gt; We spoke [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}