World Boom Ahead : Why Business and Consumers Will Prosper [Hardcover]

Knight Kiplinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

What's in store for us in the decades ahead? America's leading business forecaster offers a vision of challenges and opportunities-and suggests how to profit from them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When you call a book World Boom Ahead, you make it abundantly clear that you're not expecting to see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding into Washington or Tokyo anytime soon. How good does Kiplinger expect things to get? He sees two more decades of 1990s-like growth for the U.S. economy, with continued low inflation and increasing productivity. He sees the rest of the world starting to catch up to the economic prowess of the wealthy West, with the biggest developing nations--India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia--doubling their share of world GDP, to about 16 percent.

Still, Kiplinger, editor in chief of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, manages to keep his optimism bridled. Wherever there's a dictatorship or corrupt government, economic prosperity will be put on hold. And, of course, regional wars will still flare up. In other words, Kiplinger sees a world a lot like this one, only more prosperous globally. But even if the predictions in World Boom Ahead aren't particularly startling, the analyses backing them up are worth the time it takes to read and digest them. For example, in a section on why U.S. savings rates are low relative to other nations', Kiplinger notes that savings tend to decline when people feel confident about their economic future. In another section, he shows that taxes have remained about 20 percent of the U.S. GDP since the end of World War II, contrary to the idea that there has been an ever-increasing tax burden in the late 20th century. Part celebration of the achievements that put us in such prosperous times, part analysis of why those good times should continue, and part economics lesson, World Boom Ahead is a consistently fascinating look at our fiscal present and future. --Lou Schuler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

More optimism for the future from forecast guru Kiplinger. His major prediction is that "21st century global growth will double or triple that of the last century" due largely to innovative technology.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 404 pages
• Publisher: Kiplinger Books; 1st edition (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0938721550
• ISBN-13: 978-0938721550
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,658,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars World Boom Ahead, December 24, 1999

By 

Wendell Reid (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Boom Ahead : Why Business and Consumers Will Prosper (Hardcover)

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone. I have great respect for Kiplinger, and I say this because I used to subscribe to the newsletter and more importantly, I read their 1989 book, America in the Global 90s. At that time, America had high inflation and interest rates, Japan was booming, and it was viewed that America was declining. Kiplinger took exception to this view. Among other things, they said were that Amercia would adjust because it is open and adaptable, that technology and telecommunications would be hot (they said that telecommunications is what railroads and rivers were in the past to cities). They also said that inflation and interest rates would decline significantly (remember 20% inflation and rates?) and stocks would boom (his forecast was for 6000, up from about 1800-2000 then). Also, gold and silver would lag other investments.

An important and controversial belief was that the US has an edge on Japan because it is a more open society and economy.

Of course not all predictions can true (for example, he didn't expect Asian tigers to crash), but anyone paying attention to his forecast who have made a bundle in the 90s.

In fact, some of his predictions in this new book already are happening - he says unbelievable fortunes will be created as companies go public, soar in value and then are bought out by bigger companies. Look at what has happened in 1999 year with Internet and Liniux companies (his book came out 1998)...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book and the author are visionary, June 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: World Boom Ahead : Why Business and Consumers Will Prosper (Hardcover)

As a teacher of economics in high school I teach the kids about personal finance. Personal finance includes investing. In order to invest one must do the research on not only the companies. One must understand where the world is headed and Mr. Kiplinger does that. He offers views that are visionary and achievable. Examples include the coming changes in transportation, the evolution of satellite services. The growth of the internet and how a rising world population does not have to be a bad thing and can be an engine for economic growth. I can use this information to show my students how a rising population will lead to increases in demand for new homes and other services. I can use it to show them what kinds of jobs will be important to the new era that we are embarking upon at the end of the millenium in 2001. The future of America and the world is brighter then could have been predicted ten or twenty years ago. This book has helped me to do the research on the various fields and the companies that are involved in them. By explaining how each sector of the economy will grow I have been able to identify the sectors that I feel will grow the best over the long term. World Boom Ahead is an integral part of my strategy of investing in companies for thelong term. I enjoyed it so much that I bought a copy of it for my father.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good counterbalance to current gloom-and-doom forecasts, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: World Boom Ahead : Why Business and Consumers Will Prosper (Hardcover)

Overall a good book that made interesting reading. It was well worth the time to read it. Well researched, it is a good counterbalance to a lot of the current gloom-and-doom forecasts that prevail today (due to Y2k computer meltdown, the "millenium", etc.). Written in an easy to read prose and not the terse, disjointed prose of the Kiplinger Washington Newsletter. The book makes a convincing arguement that demographics should be the basis of many of your investment and business decisions. Overall it seemed to be very well-researched and edited with very few errors, (although I'm pretty sure that Gateway Computers' main manufacturing facility is in N. Sioux City, SD and not Sioux Falls, SD). The four star rating I've given this book is due entirely to the poor quality of the paper it was printed on, and not due to the substance of the book. The paper was not opaque enough and you could see the shadow of words on the previous or next page. This was irritating on the eyes and made the book somewhat hard to read just because it almost seemed blurry.