22 China, 120 million in India, 73 million in the U.S., 30 million in Japan, 18 million in Mexico, and 17 million in Germany. So, if China has 36% of its people working in agriculture and has the capability with robotics to bring that down to 1%, what will happen to those people as the same degree of automation occurs in manufacturing and other industries as well? Given the importance in China of keeping people working and fed, I think that the biggest wildcard question is automation. How does the middle class survive and grow in the face of significant automation? It’s going to be a similar question in the United States and G7. Automation has the potential to exacerbate inequality throughout Asia and Europe and the United States. ~The Rise of the Asian Consumer, 2nd Quarter 2018 Wrap Up If automation and innovation create the equivalent of a new “industrial revolution” that results in significant unemployment, how will people in megacities adjust? The descriptions of what happened in the urban areas during the last industrial revolution are dire—read Charles Dickens. Who will capitalize the entrepreneurial and education process to help migrate people to new economic functions, especially in a world where agriculture has been industrialized and is centrally controlled by large corporations? If people own land and can grow their own food, automation will have a very different impact. If, however, we automate manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture in Asia, where 30% to 50% of the population now live in farming communities dependent on small farmers, how is this supposed to work? This is the topic addressed by Sir James Goldsmith in the video above. If anything first created a partnership and then drove a wedge between the U.S. and parts of Asia, it is the practical necessities faced by Asian politicians trying to keep their popula- tions fed, employed, and/or receiving income. Add to this an aging population in China without a pension fund infrastructure, and you get significant stress points in the rebalancing of U.S.-China relations. Health: The cities that don’t get it right will not have the proper infrastructure to support a healthy population. Even where they do get it right, the pressure in some areas for the general population to poison itself with vaccines, phar- maceuticals, fluoride, and nutrition-deprived foods is producing populations with weak immune systems and high toxicity levels. A physically weak population is a breeding ground for diseases. If natural health doctors have been suppressed or systematically outlawed—even assassinated—in your area, and you don’t have trustworthy health care practitioners in your family or close personal networks, you will not have access to economic pathways to get and stay healthy. Whatever you do, try to live in jurisdictions where you can access fresh food and competent health professionals. For some of us, that means DIY health care, moving, or going offshore. Reserve Currency and Sovereign Debt: Another risk is the exhaustion of sovereign government debt capacity. One of the finan- cial mechanisms that makes centralization go, including urbanization, is the use of sovereign government credit and debt to subsidize and centralize the global capital and resources. That means centralizing transactional flows into big urban centers. If various parts of the world get to the point where they exhaust their sovereign debt capacity, what does that mean for urban- ization? Again, without centralized subsidy and force, information technology should disperse capacity. Technology should benefit the little guy. I know it hasn’t worked that way yet. Without sovereign debt and one global reserve II. Megacities & the Growth of Global Real Estate Companies