Customer Reviews

Boom Bust & Echo 2000 : Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the New Millennium

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Having a bookshelf full of futuristic reading including Boomernomics, Next, Pig and the Python and the complete series by H S Dent and many books from Harvard press as well as every new economy magazine printed I found myself continuing to reach for Boom Bust and Echo as it has more backbone, the chapters contain more substance and historical data to back it up. I commend this book to be carried at all times with a copy to be kept by the bed.

`Know your audience' is the first rule of communicating, and an essential tenet of dealing with people is to know them, especially if you want to persuade, motivate, or get them involved.

This book provides a fascinating look at how demographics can shape attitudes, beliefs and, most important, actions. The authors maintain that: "Demography, the study of human populations, is the most powerful-and most underutilized-tool we have to understand the past and to foretell the future.

Demographics affect every one of us as individuals, far more than most of us have ever imagined. They also play a pivotal role in economic and social life."

Boom, Bust and Echo is a very unique and interesting book; it is well worth reading for the insights that it provides into the behavior of consumers or, as the authors claim, at least two-thirds of that behavior.

The problem with this approach is the simple assumption that a commodity enjoys demand depending on what age group it appeals to, and what is the percentage of this group within a country's population overall.

That is exactly the main argument of the author: show me the population trends, birth rates, percentage of age groups, and I will tell you what's going to be in demand.

This assumption needs to be defended more thoroughly, however. Education is a good example. Although birth rates declined in the US for the last 20 years, more people get university education today compared to the past. Obviously, the economy of the 21st century demands that.

Grouth or decline rates of the population cannot be the only major independent variable predicting demand.

The problem with this approach is the simple assumption that a commodity enjoys demand depending on what age group it appeals to, and what is the percentage of this group within a country's population overall.

That is exactly the main argument of the author: show me the population trends, birth rates, percentage of age groups, and I will tell you what's going to be in demand.

This assumption needs to be defended more thoroughly, however. Education is a good example. Although birth rates declined in the US for the last 20 years, more people get university education today compared to the past. Obviously, the economy of the 21st century demands that.

Growth or decline rates of the population cannot be the only major independent variable predicting demand.