Marketing expert Ken Gronbach described how he uses demographics to navigate the many landscapes that will define what the United States will look like over the next 30 years. He explained how to make important decisions about where to live, careers, and investments. Gronbach began with a discussion of China/ North Korea/ U.S. dynamics and how population is the driving force behind the strength of nations. In the 1970s, the U.S. convinced China to adopt a "one child only" policy, which Gronbach says has left too few taxpayers and workers to support the aging population and the economy. He believes that China will cut a deal with the U.S. to control North Korea so that they can remain our major trading partner. He also sees the millennial generation (which is bigger than the baby boomers) fueling massive economic growth in the years to come.
Gronbach believes that demographics drive the economy in ways that are not generally understood. For example, he thinks that the next decade will see a massive movement of people out of the E.U. to Canada, Australia, and the U.S. because the native residents of those countries are not producing enough population to sustain their economy, and they must import labor from other parts of the world. Conversely, Gronbach predicts that the U.S. economy will grow so quickly in the next decade that "we are going to need all the robots we can make" because there won’t be enough population to provide the labor required. Based on demographic trends, Gronbach says that the industries to watch and invest in will be housing, moving material and products, and healthcare.
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Penny Sartori has a PhD in Near Death Studies from the University of Wales and teaches at the University of Swansea in the UK. She discussed her years working in the ICU as a nurse and the many near death experiences (NDEs) that happened to her patients. An encounter with a dying man disturbed her so much that she began a quest to understand death, and embarked on a five-year project to ask patients what they experienced if they had been close to death and recovered. Most of those she questioned could not remember anything, but a significant minority described what has come to be known as the "classic" NDE.
Most respondents recalled moving towards a bright light, seeing dead relatives, and occasionally a religious figure from their culture. A few had visions of a black void or even the "flames of hell" as one frightened woman described her experience. Almost all of the people who went through this also said they had a "life review." People also reported seeing how they had affected others and felt their pain if they had hurt them somehow. Based on this study, and others that are continuing, Sartori believes that consciousness does not reside within the mind, but is external and the brain "acts as a receiver of ultimate consciousness." She has also found that many patients have come back not only psychologically transformed, but also physically healed of ailments. In the last hour, listeners called in with their own NDE stories.