The 2014 NFPA Conference at the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, held on the sunny southeast coast of Florida this week, has been an excellent educational event, in addition to the always-excellent networking opportunities.
I found one of the most interesting talks to be from Peter Zeihan of Zeihan on Geopolitics. His talk, “Powers of Yesterday, Powers of Tomorrow” enthralled the record crowd with insights on where the world’s power structure is moving. Some highlights from his presentation:
• Three of the U.S.’s ongoing strengths are that we have 16,000 miles of interconnected waterways (an amazing 60% of the global total! Germany is second…), significant coastal population on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the largest consumer market in the world.
• In 2030, Americans will be the major consumers and producers of capital. The world will be more American-centric than ever.
• Europe is in demographic trouble—it has 9 of the 10 more rapidly aging countries in the world.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. has the slowest aging demography in the developed world.
• Turkey, Argentina and the U.S. are the only three countries in the world that have all the food and energy they need within arms reach.
• Indonesia and Myanmar are going to explode economically in the coming years.
• Mexico has no navigable rivers, few ports. Plus it is mountainous, and has many disassociated territories. That in of itself leads one to believe that it will never be a strong state. But in the next 50 years, the country will be stronger than ever.
• And the depressing note is that Zeihan feels that in the next five to six years, the Mexican drug cartels are going to take out the current U.S. gangs—the Bloods and the Crips—and the cartels will be infiltrating the Spanish speaking ghettos in every major city—this will change our way of life, as the North American drug war is coming here.
NFPA
www.nfpa.com
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