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Paul Kennedy famously argued that imperial overstretch -- that is, devoting too much money and resources to military uses -- plays a central role in the decline of great powers, including the United States. But it looks like America's growing obesity epidemic is reducing the pool of capable recruits, according to this story in The Washington Post (via Dana Goldstein). About 75 percent of the country's 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces, according to a report to be issued Thursday.
Other factors, such as drug use, criminal records and mental problems, contribute to what military leaders say is a major problem that threatens the country's ability to defend itself at a time when the all-volunteer force is already strained fighting two wars.
Money quote:
Childhood obesity varies considerably across the 50 states and reflects some straightforward economic and demographic patterns, according to a basic correlation analysis by my colleague Charlotta Mellander. Childhood obesity, not surprisingly, reflects adult obesity (with a correlation of .54). It is also more prevalent in states with large working-class populations (.4). It is less likely in states with higher income levels (-.32), greater concentrations of the creative class (-.37), and especially those with higher levels of adults with college degrees (-.64).When you get kids who can't do push-ups, pull-ups or run, this is a fundamental problem not just for the military but for the country," said Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions policy. Many kids are not "taking physical education in school; they're more interested in sedentary activities such as the computer or television. And we have a fast-food mentality in this country."
Photo Credit: Flickr User Seattle Municipal Archives
The first map below shows the percentages of people in various regions of the world that desire to permanently move to another country.
The second map shows the places these movers would most like to relocate to.
Gallup also compiled a very interesting index of potential net migration which compares "the estimated number of adults who would like to move out of a
country permanently subtracted from the estimated number who would like
to move to it," as a proportion of the total population. Here are the top five and bottom five countries. Interestingly, the United States did not make the top five.
Manpower CEO, Jeff Joerres talks to the Financial Times about the crisis and the possibility of a new brain drain in the U.S. and Europe.
Mr Joerres says opportunities in the developing world could prompt a "brain-drain" from America and Europe that could exacerbate the talent shortage.
"It's not just Irish going back to Ireland or Indians going back to India," he says. "It's Americans saying: 'Mumbai is not so bad and when I go there I get a standard of living that's acceptable to me'. You'll see more of that."
In a reluctant foray into politics, Mr Joerres says the US is shooting itself in the foot by having too low a limit on the number of non-immigrant visas it issues, meaning that the work permits tend to run out by May every year. "That's just wrong," he says. "The growth of this country came from people who were not American but were classically American - who came here from another country with an idea, developed it and created employment. Two-thirds of Silicon Valley companies were started by people not born in the US.
"We were so arrogant about being able to capture the smartest people in the world because we were the best alternative. But there are a lot of other neat alternatives right now. Go to Shanghai, Dubai, Qatar, Abu Dhabi - that's who the US is competing against. We're competing against the nightlife and the energy in Mumbai and Bangalore.
"This is a global labour market," Mr Joerres adds. "If you see migration back to Mexico, India, China, some of the western countries could be really adversely impacted by a brain-drain that they didn't quite anticipate."
We know that economic crises are periods of accelerated innovation and creative destruction, but they can also radically reshape the global flow of talent. Europe's economic difficulties and relative closure during the previous two major economic crashes - the Long Depression of the 1870s and the Great Depression of the 1930s - helped pave the way for the U.S. to achieve its global talent advantage. We may be seeing the beginnings of another shift today - less toward nations and more toward thriving mega-regions. One thing is for sure: The global competition for talent promises to get more heated as we move from crisis to recovery. The places that can attract the most capable and broadest array of talent will gain considerable long-run competitive advantage as that happens.
Earlier this week, Cornell mathematician Steven Strogatz reprised George Zipf's famous power law for the size distribution of cities where "the population of a city is, to a good approximation, inversely proportional to its rank."
Tim Gulden of George Mason University has used data based on satellite images of the world at night to provide a Zipfian analysis for the 1000 largest urban agglomerations globally, based on several different measures of city size comparing rankings for population, economic activity, and patented innovations.
Gulden's research provides what is perhaps the first systematic depiction of the size distribution of global cities, and generates important insights into geographic organization of economic activity and innovation across the world.
While the population of cities tends to follow the Zipf law
that Strogatz describes within a nation, this scaling does not hold for the whole collection of world cities. The distribution ends
up being somewhat flatter - particularly among the largest cities. This may result from barriers to migration between countries.
The distribution of economic activity - which Gulden estimates using the light emissions from night-time satellite images - is more Zipf-like.
Innovation, however, appears to have a different scaling rule. The
slope of -1.45 indicates that the distribution of
patent activity is much more skewed.
Gulden's work again reminds us that cities and urban agglomerations remain a key facet of globalization. As barriers come down and global forces continue to act on cities, the world's cities are likely to eventually conform to the basic rank-size pattern Zipf identified - already evident in the global distribution of economic activity and the even more skewed pattern of global innovation. The world's largest urban agglomerations are likely to become even bigger, while second- and third-tier cities face ever harsher competition.
"American draft dodgers in Canada were far outnumbered by the young Canadians who joined U.S. forces to fight in Vietnam."
From the The illustrated History of Canada (thanks to Joe Martin for the pointer).
Earlier this week I posted on the best cities for college grads to launch their careers. But what are the top countries new grads are looking to?
The same survey asked both American and foreign-born students to name the best countries in which to do so.
Most Popular Countries for College Grads to Launch Their Careers
|
American |
Foreign Born |
|
1. United Kingdom |
1.United Kingdom |
|
2. China |
2.China |
|
3. United States |
3.United States |
|
4. France |
4.Hong Kong |
|
5. Australia |
5.India |
|
6. Japan |
6.Japan |
|
7. Germany |
7.Australia |
|
8. Hong Kong |
8.Germany |
|
9. Spain |
9.Canada |
|
10. Italy |
10.France |
Source: CareerCast.com
The United States ranked third among both groups - behind the UK and China. Both groups also favored Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Germany, and France, while foreign students named India and Canada as among the 10 best countries to start their work lives.The high ranking of the UK puzzles me, while the high ranking for China excites me.
If nothing else, these findings corroborate other studies and data points which suggest the United States may be losing some of its allure as the globe's center for economic opportunity. But at least our students seem more inclined to go out and embrace the world.
Ed Glaeser asks: "If the world is so flat, then why are cities growing so quickly, especially in the third world?" He explains:
In the developing world, urbanization has often taken the form of exploding populations in megacities. Mumbai's population increased to 19 million in 2007 from 10.8 million in 1985. Bangalore, the urban symbol of the flat world, has had its population double over two decades, to 6.8 million today from 3.4 million in 1985.
The growth of these cities and the continuing strength of older urban areas -- like New York, London and Paris -- is no accident. Globalization and new technologies attract people to big cities, by increasing the returns to urban proximity ...
Globalization and technological change have increased the returns to being smart; human beings are a social species that get smart by hanging around smart people.
This powerful clustering force - identified by Jane Jacobs and Robert Lucas, among others - is making the world more geographically concentrated everyday.
Figuring out ways to adjust to it - especially how to address the huge costs being borne by people and places being left behind - remains one of the most pressing domestic and international public policy questions of our time.
Richard Florida
