Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations, and Globalization Will Change Your World by the Year 2020 - Softcover

Shapiro, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312352433 ISBN 13: 9780312352431

Publisher: Griffin, 2009

Synopsis

What will life be like in America, Europe, Japan, and China in the year 2020?
As the world grows increasingly interconnected and inter-related by globalization, economic crisis and new technologies, the answer to this important question depends largely on the paths taken by the world's major nations. In Futurecast, Robert J. Shapiro, a man world leaders and heads of industry look to for straight talk on the global economic, political and financial affairs, sketches the future with a critical eye to tell us what our world will really be like over the next decade. In this brief time, he foresees monumental changes caused by three historic new forces-- globalization, the aging of societies, and America's role as a sole superpower with no near peer-- that will determine the paths of nations and the lives of countless millions.
- The U.S. and China will be the world's two indispensable economies, dominating the course of globalization.
- Globalization will continue to shift heavy manufacturing and millions of high-end service jobs from advanced countries like the U.S., to China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Romania, Turkey and other developing nations.
- Europe's major nations and Japan will face the prospect of serious economic decline and critical problems in their retirement pension systems, pushing them further towards the periphery of global economic and geopolitical power.
- Every major country--the U.S., Europe, Japan, China--will face critical problems maintaining their health care systems, and the entire world will face a slow-motion crisis over energy supplies and the need to confront climate change.
In an unstable world, Robert Shapiro's Futurecast is a necessary road map to the coming years.

About this title

About the Author

ROBERT J. SHAPIRO is co-founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, a private firm that advises U.S. and foreign businesses, governments, and nonprofit organizations. He served as Under Secretary of Commerce from 1998 to 2001. He also was the co-founder and Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute, Bill Clinton's principal economic advisor in the 1991-1992 campaign, a senior economic advisor to Al Gore and John Kerry in their campaigns, Legislative Director for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Assoc. Editor of U.S. News & World Report, and economics columnist for Slate magazine. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and lives in Washington, D.C.

Edition details

• Publisher: Griffin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0312352433
• ISBN 13: 9780312352431
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368