Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Asian Wealthy

The wealth of rich Asians has surpassed Europe's millionaires for the first time as the region's stock and property prices rebounded from the global recession, a report showed Wednesday.(1)

Absent war of one type or another, expect to see Asia's wealthy also surpass North America's in due time. Wealth is primarily built in domestic markets. However, will it matter ? Most of the world's population lives in Asia, most of the wealthy should live there, but it is still a region of deep poverty. India's per capita GDP-PPP is an example, clocking in behind Iraq according to the IMF. Because of the internal poverty, India and China will never be able to project force the way Western powers can. And they will always have problems with 'brain drain', as well.

I expect the international political fault lines to remain very much as they are for quite some time, the only wild card being if there is not room at 'the top' to accommodate a burgeoning ruling class in Asia (how much larger can the G-20 get ?). In that case, things could get nasty very quickly.

1'Asia's wealthy surpass Europe's for first time' - AP

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