523: The Real Driver of Prosperity: Population Growth

We all know technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there’s a quieter, less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunity: demographics. Where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink — these are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. That’s why all of the multifamily investments you see through Investor Club focus on areas where there is job creation. Where there is job creation, there is population growth, and people have to live somewhere. Scale that concept up to a global level, and you start to see why migration, climate, and demographics are the real megatrends of the century. Take China — decades of the one-child policy have created a demographic cliff. Contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia, where populations are booming. Add to this the wildcard of AI, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or offset aging ones. For investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone thinking long term, the key isn’t where the puck is today — it’s where the puck is going. That’s the topic of this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  If a place is attracting young people, it must be doing something right. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin, I wanna remind you that there is a website associated with this podcast is called wealth formula.com. Go there and uh, check out some of the resources we have, including the opportunity. To join our accredited investor club. Uh, this is a. A group, uh, for a credit investors to see a potential deal flow that you wouldn't see otherwise, uh, because they are private, uh, private nature. So the process is easy. If you are an accredit investor, go ahead and sign up and get onboarded. Then basically wait to see what kind of deals are out there and see if you're interested. Check it out. Wealth formula.com. Okay, so let's start. Uh, let's talk a little bit today about something that's really important, maybe not appreciated as much. You know, we know that technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there's a quieter, sort of less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunities. And that is demographics, um, where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink. These are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. And that's why all of the multifamily investment you see through say investor club, uh, focus on areas where there's job creation. Why? Because where there is job creation, there is population growth. And guess what? People have to live somewhere, right? So that's something that you might be familiar with already, but scale that concept up to a global level and you start to see why migration. Climate demographics, they're really the sort of mega trends of the century. All you have to do is take a look at China, right? Decades of one child policy have created essentially a demographic cliff for them. And you contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia where populations are booming. And then you add to this, the wild card of ai, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or, or potentially offset. Aging ones like China, as we mentioned. So for investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone really thinking long, uh, term, the key isn't necessarily where the Pak is today, as the Great Gretzky once said. It's where the puck is going, and that is the topic of this Week's Wealth Formula podcast, and we will have that for you right after these messages. 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Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today I'm joined by Parag, Dr. Parag Khanna, a globally recognized strategist, bestselling author, and founder of Alpha Geo. His work focuses on some of the most important forces shaping the future of wealth, opportunity, uh, wealth, opportunity, migration, demographics, climate and technology. He's advised governments, global institutions, and even military leaders on how to navigate a rapidly changing world, and his books, including Move the Future is Asian, have become. Essential guides for understanding where people capital and power are headed. Uh, welcome to show up Pak, how are you? Thank you. Great. Great to be with you. And, uh, thanks again for coming all the way across, uh, the world from Singapore. Uh, I just got you off your, uh, ice bath and, and tea, so we should be ready to go right now. Ready to rock? For sure. That is the best way to start the day. So I wanna talk to you about things that, you know, you're, you're an expert on. Um, one of the things that you talk about is, uh, migration as an investment signal. So you've written that migration is, is a driver of growth, which makes intuitive sense. So what migration trends should investors be watching closely as signals, uh, for where capital will flow next? Sure. I mean, there's many reasons to talk about migration and you know, just backing up for a moment, it really is the original globalization. So when we think of globalization as a force for good, a force for prosperity, a force for comparative advantage among nations and so forth, well migration, it all began with a single step. Now, the reason this is so important today is because not only do we have the mass migrations of today, which can be both. Enriching and also destabilizing. Right? It's not merely an unadulterated good look at the politics of the United States right now, for example. Yeah, in Europe. Yeah. Migration, turning migration off or on literally has a significant measurable economic impact. Right now, for example, already economists are debating how. The extent to which cutting off inflows of migrants is going negatively impact GDP as we head into a recession, right? Among other things, right? So will it be wages or is it simply going to choke the innovative capacity? In the productive capacity and just the output of key industries. Uh, so that's something to, to dig into in a, uh, for a bit. But the real, one of the big reasons why I wrote the book is because. Unlike the last a hundred plus years where the world population was going like this, right? Quadrupling over the past century. Now we're reaching a plateau, as you know, and this is why Elon Musk and everyone talks about, yeah, you know, peak humanity and civilizational decline and low fertility rates. I mean, he's, he's late to the game, quite frankly. You know, those of us who work on these issues have been talking about this for a very long time. We've also noticed that it's too late. A lot of people on social media are still kind of saying, let's get, let's have more babies, or These rich people have babies, right? I just need to remind everyone so we're on the same page. It's not enough. It's not nearly enough. There are not enough children. There will never be enough children. You need humanoids in robots or whatever the case may be, to take care of the elderly and the young. At this point, there's so few young people. So migration matters because where young people go in particular, take millennials, gen Z, gen Alpha, take everyone between the ages of five and 40. 35 years, or they're up to 45. So a 40 year block spanning a couple of generations. Everyone today, who's young, where they go, they vote with their feet, whether they're moving from California to Texas, right? You know, LA's loss is Austin's gain, or San Francisco Boulder, Colorado's gain, or you know, Boise Idaho's gain, right? It's zero sum when you don't have population growth, right? My people, I lose. You gain people, you win. So the zero sum nature of demographics and migration is what's new because up until the present, every place was just having more and more children. So it's like, oh, well a million Indians left India, like no big deal. Right? Um, but once, once you stop having population growth, it's, it's zero sum. So in other words, why does it matter for investors? It's three words. Follow the people. If a country, so you know, you and I can sit here and pontificate and we can say, oh, Europe is finished. Europe is dead. Well, I mean, look, go to Lisbon, go to Berlin. Go to Athens. Yeah. Those places feel dead. No, they're attracting young people. So it's not necessarily at a country level. Right. But city by city, place by place. It's, you can boil down all the complexity of the world. Geographically into this one thing. If a place is attracting young people there, mu it must be doing something right. So, so in that regard, pro, so who, who are some of the winners and who are some of the losers when it comes to, at the city level? So here's a place that everyone's heard of Dubai, right? The United Arab Emirates, right as a country and Dubai as a city.