Tag Archives: inflation

Predictions: Focusing the Crystal Ball on 2020

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The year 2020 is creeping closer. But if you’re projecting economic forecasts and demographics for eight years from now, it seems like a lifetime away.

Neverthless, the fearless prognosticators at Kiplinger (the authors of weekly management decision-making letters and various other publications and products) consistently weigh in on future conditions. These are a few of their recent insights, in separate reports:

  • Don’t be shocked if inflation doubles, from 2% this year to 4% or a bit more by 2020. Higher interest rates will mean pricier mortages, about 8% compared to 4% now for a 30-year fixed rate loan. The homeownership rate will settle around 66%, higher than now but shy of the peak of 69% in 2006.
  • By 2020, health care will account for nearly one in nine U.S. jobs, adding more than 4 million jobs in the decade. Home health aides will be the fastest growth segment, but there will also be rising demand for registered nurses, physicians and surgeons.
  • Consumer spending in Africa will double by 2020 with the overall economy growing by 5% a year. Joining South Africa as growth hot spots will be Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. Others to watch: Ghana, Tunisia and Botswana (with plenty of minerals and a stable government).
  • Staying global and extending the time out five more years (to 2025) will result in more megacities. Projected to have 20 million people within its borders by that time (no city today has reached that level) are Mexico City; Tokyo; Shanghai; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and three Indian cities … Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. New York is listed as a possible ninth. Seven more Chinese cities will top 10 million each, according to the forecasters.

We might not remember to pull this or other predictions out eight years from now, but if we do I imagine the experts will be on target more than a few times.

Food Inflation Could Reach 4% in U.S.

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Personally, I eat more beef than Dr. Atkins trapped in a meat locker, so this is not encouraging news from Businessweek. But it’s news nonetheless, especially considering Indiana’s strong ties to the pork industry:

U.S. food costs will rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year, unchanged from February’s estimate, according to the Department of Agriculture. The increase would be the fastest since 2008.

Forecasts were raised for meat, eggs, vegetables and fats and oils. Prices for pork may climb as much as 7 percent, the biggest gain in any category, the USDA said today in a report. The department also raised its projection for food consumed at home by 0.5 percentage point, to a range of 3.5 to 4.5 percent.

“Recent food-commodity price increases, along with grocery-store price increases over the past few months,” have pushed up forecasts, Ephraim Leibtag, a USDA economist, said in a note accompanying the report.

Global food prices rose 25 percent last year and set a record last month, according to the United Nations. Riots prompted partly by rising costs have toppled governments in Egypt and Tunisia and contributed to unrest in other parts of northern Africa and the Middle East.

Expenses likely will continue to rise this year because of higher oil prices and smaller harvests, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said March 9.