Some "Kondratieff" After Effects

The surging “Kondratieff” Long-Wave is in the process of creating a “New Normal” and will generate many predictable and many surprising demographic changes.  The following article identifies one of each.

#1 The first waves of the Super “Kondratieff” Long-Wave have utterly destroyed roughly $13,000,000,000,000 of RE and Stock values from the Balance Sheets of the average American.  The net of this is that they must go somewhere in this country where they can afford to live.  Whereas, in the past we often witnessed "Gentrification" of neighborhoods, we will now see "Gentrification" of the entire country! This holds many challenges and many unforeseen opportunities for Advertising and Marketing executives.  We have covered many of them in our inaugural Market Review.

#2 The current generation of youth has been ‘Psy-Oped’ into tragic role reversals.  Namely women are empowered and taught to be more like men, and males are taught to be more sensitive and to be more like women.

The net of this is that the new generation of males are more prone to be impotently powerless and in need of ‘nurturing’ beyond the teen years.  The evidence of this trend is right here in these statistics, which proves quite surprising to those of us from earlier generations, because we could NOT wait to leave home, and we did at the very first opportunity!  

Now 25 to 34 year old males are living at home.  The societal and cultural implications of this newly emerging demographic trend are quite devastating for the nation and most especially for  the 'emotionally castrated' males.

This and associated trends also hold tremendous challenges and dangers for Advertising and Marketing executives, as well.  And we have covered these issues in some great detail in or inaugural issue of our Market Review, as well.

U.S. Population Migrates From Coasts for Income

Bloomberg; By Brian Chappatta - Dec 20, 2011 7:00 AM ET

“…New York, California and other high- cost U.S. states may lose residents as the economy recovers, continuing a trend during the past decade of Americans searching for more affordable regions to settle.

The U.S. population climbed 9.7 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census Bureau data. Five states -- Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Utah and Idaho -- grew at more than twice the national pace, as California, the most-populous, had its smallest increase ever, the data show.

…., the effects of the economic downturn may rekindle movements away from high-priced areas, said Joel Kotkin, author of “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050,” a book about demographics.

“If you move from New York to Houston, you just gave yourself a gigantic raise,” Kotkin said in a telephone interview. “As the country has become more stressed, people have to move to those places where they can achieve a middle- class lifestyle at a lower cost.”

Living With Parents

….Men 25 to 34 years old, who are usually among the most frequent migrants, have increasingly opted to live with their parents during the past five years, according to government figures.

“A lot of people who would have been out-migrants have not yet left home,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has studied census data for more than three decades. “There is this pent-up demand for migration, and it could be that once things pick up, there will be an exodus again from these places.”

….

 “When migration picks up, to what degree will there still be this gulf between where the middle class can afford to live and where they can’t?” Frey said. “Coastal California will likely still be out of a lot of middle-class homeowners’ reach, as will living in the more expensive parts of the Northeast.”