A GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR CEOs

[Gavin in Va Beach]

Interesting read- http://www.yoest.com/2008/05/20/intelligen...-herbert-meyer/

 

 

This is a paper presented several weeks ago by Herb Meyer at a Davos,

Switzerland meeting which was attended by most of the CEOs from all

the major international corporations — a very good summary of

today’s key trends and a perspective one seldom sees. Herbert E.

Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to

the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s

National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed

production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-

secret projections for the President and his national security advisers.

 

Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S.Government

official to forecast the Soviet Union’s collapse, for which he later

was awarded the U.S.National Intelligence Distinguished Service

Medal, the intelligence community’s highest honor.

 

 

[ Meyer is] Formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is also the author of

several books.

 

 

 

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?

A GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR CEOs

 

By HERBERT MEYER

 

FOUR MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS

 

Currently, there are [4] major transformations that are shaping

political, economic and world events. These transformations have

profound implications for American business leaders and owners, our

culture and on our way of life.

 

1. The War in Iraq

 

There are three major monotheistic religions in the world:

Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the sixteenth century, Judaism and

Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests

and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward.

Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became

separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights,

human Rights-all these are defining point of modern Western

civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn’t take

off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity

found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened,

it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of

art, literature and music the world has ever known. Islam, which

developed in the seventh century, counts millions of Moslems around the

world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak

within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western

civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the seventh

century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the

Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates

of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam

and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward.

Islam lost and went backward. Interestingly, the date of that battle

was September 11. Since them, Islam has not found a way to reconcile

with the modern world.

 

Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by

radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things.

First, units of our armed forces are in thirty countries around the world

hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very

little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan

and Iraq.

 

These actions are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue

about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the

underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove

the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is

that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward

into the 21st century. That’s what our involvement in Iraq and

Afghanistan is all about.

 

The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of

people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use

airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons or dirty bombs. Even with

a first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you

can’t stop every attack. That means our tolerance for political

horseplay has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with

terrorists or weapons of mass destructions.

 

Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East.

 

That’s why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals

and give the moderates a chance to hold power, they might find a way

to reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at

Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s important to look for any signs that they

are modernizing.

 

For example, women being brought into the work force and colleges in

Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution is good.

 

People can argue about what the U.S. is doing and how we’re doing it,

but anything that suggests Islam is finding its way forward is good.

 

2. The emergence of China

 

In the last 20 years, China has moved 250 million people from the

farms and villages into the cities. Their plan is to move another 300

million in the next 20 years. When you put that many people into the

cities, you have to find work for them. That’s why China is addicted

to manufacturing; they have to put all the relocated people to work.

When we decide to manufacture something in the U.S., it’s based on

market needs and the opportunity to make a profit. In China, they

make the decision because they want the jobs, which is a very

different calculation.

 

While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to

low prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic codependency has

developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from

China, they will explode politically. If China stops selling to us,

our economy will take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are

subsidizing their economic development; they are subsidizing our

economic growth.

 

Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for

raw materials, which drives prices up worldwide. China is also

thirsty for oil, which is one reason oil is now at one hundred dollars a barrel. By

2020, China will produce more cars than the U.S. China is also buying

its way into the oil infrastructure around the world. They are doing

it in the open market and paying fair market prices, but millions of

barrels of oil that would have gone to the U.S. are now going to

China. China’s quest to assure it has the oil it needs to fuel its

economy is a major factor in world politics and economics.

 

We have our Navy fleets protecting the sea lines, specifically the

ability to get the tankers through. It won’t be long before the

Chinese have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Persian Gulf as well.

The question is, will their aircraft carrier be pointing in the same

direction as ours or against us?

 

3. Shifting demographics of Western Civilization

 

Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a

civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a

steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1 In Western Europe, the

birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement.

In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there

are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain

are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population

declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the

economy. When you don’t have young workers to replace the older ones,

you have to import them.

 

The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the

Moslems comprise ten percent of France and Germany, and the percentage

is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the

Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of

their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason

Germany and France don’t support the Iraq war is they fear their

Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of

all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

 

The huge design flaw in the postmodern secular state is that you need

a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The

Europeans simply don’t wish to have children, so they are dying. In

Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60

million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very

different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers.

Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000

schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan

is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese

will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run

an economy with those demographics.

 

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world’s major economic

engines, aren’t merely in recession, they’re shutting down. This will

have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning

to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct

correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and

a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant.

 

The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below

replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to

support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the

smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay

marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward

spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the

traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and

raising children.

 

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an

increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by

ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 — same as France — while the

Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are

starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder

dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is

not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

 

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive

society understands-you need kids to have a healthy society. Children

are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That’s how

a society works, but the postmodern secular state seems to have

forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had

been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security

or Medicare problems.

 

The world’s most effective birth control device is money. As society

creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates

drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living.

 

The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic

development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax

credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four

children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of

22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market. That turned into a

huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today’s dollars

would cost $12,000 per child.

 

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both

countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have

the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China

and India, families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of

these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never

find wives. When left alone, nature produces 103 boys for every 100

girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100

girls.

 

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will

be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth’s

land surface and much of its oil. You can’t control that much area

with such a small population. Immediately to the south, you have

China with 70 million unmarried men who are a real potential

nightmare scenario for Russia.

 

4. Restructuring of American Business

 

The fourth major transformation involves a fundamental restructuring

of American business. Today’s business environment is very complex

and competitive. To succeed, you have to be the best, which means

having the highest quality and lowest cost. Whatever your price

point, you must have the best quality and lowest price. To be the

best, you have to concentrate on one thing. You can’t be all things

to all people and be the best.

 

A generation ago, IBM used to make every part of their computer. Now

Intel makes the chips, Microsoft makes the software, and someone else

makes the modems, hard drives, monitors, etc. IBM even out sources

their call center. Because IBM has all these companies supplying

goods and services cheaper and better than they could do it

themselves, they can make a better computer at a lower cost. This is

called a fracturing of business. When one company can make a better

product by relying on others to perform functions the business used

to do itself, it creates a complex pyramid of companies that serve

and support each other.

 

This fracturing of American business is now in its second generation.

 

The companies who supply IBM are now doing the same thing -

outsourcing many of their core services and production process. As a

result, they can make cheaper, better products. Over time, this

pyramid continues to get bigger and bigger. Just when you think it

can’t fracture again, it does.

 

Even very small businesses can have a large pyramid of corporate

entities that perform many of its important functions. One aspect of

this trend is that companies end up with fewer employees and more

independent contractors. This trend has also created two new words in

business, integrator and complementor. At the top of the pyramid, IBM

is the integrator. As you go down the pyramid, Microsoft, Intel and

the other companies that support IBM are the complementors. However,

each of the complementors is itself an integrator for the

complementors underneath it.

 

This has several implications, the first of which is that we are now

getting false readings on the economy. People who used to be

employees are now independent contractors launching their own

businesses. There are many people working whose work is not listed as

a job. As a result, the economy is perking along better than the

numbers are telling us.

 

Outsourcing also confused the numbers. Suppose a company like General

Motors decides to outsource all its employee cafeteria functions to

Marriott (which it did). It lays-off hundreds of cafeteria workers,

who then get hired right back by Marriott. The only thing that has

changed is that these people work for Marriott rather than GM. Yet,

the media headlines will scream that America has lost more

manufacturing jobs. All that really happened is that these workers

are now reclassified as service workers. So the old way of counting

jobs contributes to false economic readings. As yet, we haven’t

figured out how to make the numbers catch up with the changing

realities of the business world.

 

Another implication of this massive restructuring is that because

companies are getting rid of units and people that used to work for

them, the entity is smaller. As the companies get smaller and more

efficient, revenues are going down but profits are going up. As a

result, the old notion that revenues are up and we’re doing great

isn’t always the case anymore. Companies are getting smaller but are

becoming more efficient and profitable in the process.

[/dev/null]

One of my TSW pet peeves is when somebody links an article then proceeds to post the whole thing

[Gavin in Va Beach]

One of my TSW pet peeves is when somebody links an article then proceeds to post the whole thing

 

Happier now?

[justnzane]

lengthy but excellent read. I disagree a tad with how american business are restructuring and how they must restructure, but this was a very spot on article.

[Booster4324]

China will have an aircraft carrier pointed at us or for us? I doubt that.

[RLflutie7]

Interesting read- http://www.yoest.com/2008/05/20/intelligen...-herbert-meyer/

 

 

3. That's is why back in 1999 or 2000, I said putting women in the work force was a huge mistake. To maintain a upper middle class lifestyle, women put off child birth because they want a career and they use birth control.

 

The white population gets richer and has a upper middle class and they start having less children. The white population becomes more rich for a very short period of time. And then it all implodes because there is no young people left to support all the old rich people when they get old. Mexicans are imported because there is not enough young white people left.

 

Like the article said, having kids and having a middle class lifestyle are not compatible. So what you have today is a society with a bunch of uppity white women who are not having children.

[elegantelliotoffen]

3. That's is why back in 1999 or 2000, I said putting women in the work force was a huge mistake. To maintain a upper middle class lifestyle, women put off child birth because they want a career and they use birth control.

 

The white population gets richer and has a upper middle class and they start having less children. The white population becomes more rich for a very short period of time. And then it all implodes because there is no young people left to support all the old rich people when they get old. Mexicans are imported because there is not enough young white people left.

 

Like the article said, having kids and having a middle class lifestyle are not compatible. So what you have today is a society with a bunch of uppity white women who are not having children.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy#Synopsis

[Chilly]

Dear Elliot,

 

How do you feel about the heritability of intelligence?

[UConn James]

Dear Elliot,

 

How do you feel about the heritability of intelligence?

 

He's again't it.

 

Unless you provide him some links... HTML only, no PDFs, site domain-name registered by godaddy.com, and in triplicate.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Dear Elliot,

 

How do you feel about the heritability of intelligence?

 

Maybe it's inherited, maybe it isn't. I don't have an opinion. But....if you forced me to have one I'd say it's probably a combination of genes and environment.

[Wacka]

3.5

 

 

I think this guy, molson, et al are the same person. They don't seem to have a job except to come on here and spout the DNC talking points of the day.

[John Adams]

3.5

 

I think this guy, molson, et al are the same person. They don't seem to have a job except to come on here and spout the DNC talking points of the day.

 

You'll never be more correct than this; you should end your posting career on this high note.

[UConn James]

3.5

 

 

I think this guy, molson, et al are the same person. They don't seem to have a job except to come on here and spout the DNC talking points of the day.

 

Yep. Mickey, molsen, beausox, steely, hogboy.... there's been a steady stream of virtually the same persona. He creates different user-names so they have the air of being on the board for a while with the join date, then languishes a few of them to pull out when one inevitably gets banned (ever notice how they just roll out in sequence after each ban?) b/c he acts like an a--hole (crusades, posting entire copyrighted texts w/o links or quotes, personal insults among other violations of the Terms of Service). And then just the general 'Do my research for me' and 'I don't care what the facts are; I'm not going to admit I'm wrong, so I'm just going to toy with people.' Tracing the IP addresses would probably confirm some things.

 

It really brings the quality of the boards (PPP, TSW and OTW) down to have to deal with this kind of bs, and puts a lot of crap work onto the mods.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Yep. Mickey, molsen, beausox, steely, hogboy.... there's been a steady stream of virtually the same persona. He creates different user-names so they have the air of being on the board for a while with the join date, then languishes a few of them to pull out when one inevitably gets banned (ever notice how they just roll out in sequence after each ban?) b/c he acts like an a--hole (crusades, posting entire copyrighted texts w/o links or quotes, personal insults among other violations of the Terms of Service). And then just the general 'Do my research for me' and 'I don't care what the facts are; I'm not going to admit I'm wrong, so I'm just going to toy with people.' Tracing the IP addresses would probably confirm some things.

 

It really brings the quality of the boards (PPP, TSW and OTW) down to have to deal with this kind of bs, and puts a lot of crap work onto the mods.

 

So you're saying that I created this account over 2 years ago in order to skirt the terms of the TOS? Check my IP address please, this is the only account I've ever had here.

[John Adams]

So you're saying that I created this account over 2 years ago in order to skirt the terms of the TOS? Check my IP address please, this is the only account I've ever had here.

 

Even if you're using the only account you've ever owned and are not Molson (highly unlikely), you're still polluting the board with your toxicity.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Even if you're using the only account you've ever owned and are not Molson (highly unlikely), you're still polluting the board with your toxicity.

 

Why are you getting so bent out of shape?

[John Adams]

Why are you getting so bent out of shape?

 

Because you are, yet again, dragging down a board of generally well-behaved people with your repetitive, obnoxious, childish posts. For the brief periods when you've been on hiatus from this place, it actually felt like a decent board again. But like the cancer you are, you keep coming back, infecting us all.

 

Take your mental problems to another board. You're not wanted or liked here, as has been made clear many times. A person of somewhat normal social skills would understand that and go where he was tolerated. But that's not you.

 

In my entire time posting here--since the mid 90s--I've never seen anyone quite like you. You trump BF, Rich in Ohio, Tenne--you are the leader of the pack of the mentally ill that have occasionally posted here. I'm sure you take pride in that but you should seek help.

 

If only the ignore feature just wiped your name off the entire board for me. Ahh, I can dream.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Because you are, yet again, dragging down a board of generally well-behaved people with your repetitive, obnoxious, childish posts. For the brief periods when you've been on hiatus from this place, it actually felt like a decent board again. But like the cancer you are, you keep coming back, infecting us all.

 

Typical right wing response- I don't like what you're saying so I want you silenced.

 

 

If only the ignore feature just wiped your name off the entire board for me. Ahh, I can dream.

 

Why don't you ignore me then?

[justnzane]

Even if you're using the only account you've ever owned and are not Molson (highly unlikely), you're still polluting the board with your toxicity.

Pot meeting kettle?

[DC Tom]

Typical right wing response- I don't like what you're saying so I want you silenced.

 

He's actually pretty far left, dumbass. If you weren't so caught up with yourself, you might actually perceive that it's not your politics he dislikes, it's you personally.