700,000 Americans abandon their traditional landline phones every month, according to the Economist, and roughly 25% of all Americans are “cell phone only.”

We’ve written in these pages before about how technological and demographic changes are fundamentally altering sleepy old industries like newspapers and college text books.  The revolution in telephony, however, is a much bigger deal involving much larger companies and a lot more money.

Like many revolutions, this one is being led by the young.  The chart below makes a vivid point: younger Americans in their 20s and 30s, who generally tend to be highly mobile (bordering on nomadic) have shunned the traditional home phone en masse, opting to use their mobile phones exclusively. In 2008, more than 40% of the “just out of college” age cohort chose not to bother with a home line, and the number has risen every year.

It’s not hard to understand why.  When you move every 6-months, transferring your home phone service can be a cumbersome drag in an era in which Americans are used to instant service.   It’s also uneconomical for a young single person to pay for both home and mobile service, especially considering that young people spend comparatively little time at home.  (Plus, an iPhone is so much cooler than a home phone, dude.) Read the rest of this entry »

By now, everyone should be aware of the anti-regime protests taking place in Iran.   The country is experiencing unrest not seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the Shah and brought the current regime to power.  The “spark” that ignited this rebellion was the disputed presidential election, of course.  But the “tinder” that caused this fire to spread are Iran’s demographics.  As you can see from the charts below, Iran is primed for revolution. Read the rest of this entry »

I rarely take the time to read the “Business Life” section of the Financial Times.  It’s the one section that I consider “soft” fluff journalism in a newspaper that usually prints high-quality “hard” news.   (I see little value in reading about water cooler etiquette, new standards of office political correctness, and the “next new thing” MBA buzzwords that sound remarkably similar to the previous batch of “next new thing” MBA buzzwords…I got more than enough of this drivel in grad school, thank you very much.)

At any rate, in scanning the section, I did come across an interesting and worthwhile article on the interaction in the workplace between the Baby Boomers and their children, the Echo Boomers (or Gen Y).   In “A to Z of Generation Y Attitudes,” Alison Maitland analyzes reports by the US Center for Work-Life Policy and London Business School titled “Bookend Generations” and “The Reflexive Generation,” respectively, and finds that the Echo Boomers, despite all of their supposed tech sophistication, are not too unlike the Baby Boomers.  Both generations tend to be rather unorthodox and free thinking relative to Generation X, the much smaller generation sandwiched between them.   The attitudes of Generation X tend to be more conventional, as their smaller numbers naturally make them more conformist.

In this sense, the coming years will be defined by “bookend” dynamics in which the both the older Boomers and the younger Echo Boomers will set the social and career standards with Gen X being lost in the middle.

Charles Sizemore, CFA

Co-author of the recently-published Boom or Bust: Understanding and Profiting from a Changing Consumer Economy

We found an editorial in the usually gentlemanly Financial Times that was downright caustic.  We don’t usually comment on angry rants, but this one is somewhat instructive in that it could be a sign of things to come.  

We have heard about “generational warfare” for decades now, but now, in the wake of the worst bear market and recession since the Great Depression, it might finally be upon us.  The Baby Boomers have always had charmed lives of sorts.  Born into the affluent, suburban, post-war America of the 1940s and 50s, they were spoiled practically from birth with a sense of entitlement.  

Despite their size as a generation — the largest in history — as a group they have many of the characteristics of only children, such as a predisposition to self-indulgence and a deep belief that they are (and should be!) the center of attention.  Read the rest of this entry »