I actually get a kick from being called and teased about being a “boomer.” When I was in my mid-20s, I operated a wholesale business selling to independent distributors. One client was a man named Bill Densmore, who was in his 60s. Bill and I became friends.
In one conversation when I pulled the “age card,” Bill said this: “We all have the same amount of now.” But, he continued, “I have the advantage of more experience than you do.” The reason I bring this is up is I think about what he said when I hear old guys, like me, whining and complaining about the current state of affairs. My reaction is, “Have you been asleep for the last 40 years?”
In 2010 a British journalist and businessman Matthew Ridley wrote a book, titled The Rational Optimist, about how human prosperity evolves almost without stop. It was mainly about economics but as one reviewer wrote, “refutes the ‘doomsayers,’ who insist that everything is going from bad to worse.”
Ridley recently revisited his ideas in an article in The Spectator magazine. He writes: “We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 percent of the world’s population for the first time. Global inequality has been plunging; child mortality has fallen to record low levels; famine virtually went extinct; malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline.”
He gives example of how through increased technology, we are using “less stuff” in absolute terms. “A normal soft drink can today contains 13 grams of aluminum, much of it recycled. In 1959, it contained 85 grams. Experts in the 1970s forecast how much water the world would consume in the year 2000. In fact, the total usage that year was half as much as predicted. Not because there were fewer humans, but because human inventiveness allowed more efficient irrigation for agriculture, the biggest user of water.”
“I’ve been faced with ‘what about…’ questions: what about the great recession, the euro crisis, Syria, Ukraine, Donald J. Trump? How can I possibly say that things are getting better, given all that? The answer is: because bad things happen, while the world still gets better. Yet, get better it does, and it has done so over the course of this decade at a rate that has astonished even me.”
But what about the Philippines where we know—listening to the press and media—everything is “bad, worse or worst?” And just so you don’t go all petty political, let’s look at some various time frames.
In 1990, the infant mortality rate was 40.8 per 1,000 live births. It is now down to 19.5. Internet usage in 2000 was 2 percent versus 60 percent today, and knowledge is power. Philippine adult literacy rate has increased from 83 percent in 1980 to 98 percent in 2018. The pupil-to-teacher ratio was 35 to 1 and 38 to 1 for elementary and secondary education in 2002, and is now 31 to 1 and 27 to 1, respectively.
The extreme poverty rate was 25 percent in 1994, and is 7.8 percent today. The Philippine prevalence of undernourishment has decreased. Even things like “Forests as a percentage of land” has increased from 23 percent in 2010 to the current 28 percent.
My strong suggestion for millennials and beyond; listen to us boomers, for our potential wisdom of experience and not for our whining.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.