Full report here.

    Working age populations are shrinking in wealthy countries, China, and Russia, but growing in developing poorer countries, particularly Africa and South Asia,” where there are also fewer jobs available, the report says.

    Major economies are growing more slowly, and poorer economies that might have relied on cheap labor to move up in the world are being shut out by automation. Simply put, it’s becoming cheaper to build a robot to churn out cheap clothes than to employ ranks of poorly paid humans—a problem that’s already drying up jobs in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

    Combine that shrinking pool of jobs with a climate change-driven lack of resources and you’ve got a wave of migrants headed for Europe that military intervention can’t stop.

    Those on the receiving end of that flood of humanity, already facing rising unemployment and falling incomes, will increasingly adopt a “circle the wagons, bring up the castle gate” hostile mentality toward the “other” that could make Brexit and the jingoistic strains of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign look tame.

    “Populist leaders or movements, whether on the right or left, may leverage democratic practices to foster popular support for consolidation of power in a strong executive and a slow, steady erosion of civil society, the rule of law and the norms of tolerance,” with “anti-immigrant and xenophobic sentiment” undermining the West’s diverse societies, the report says. In other words, popular leaders may rally their followers to swallow increasingly authoritarian rule because they’ve convinced people it will protect them from outside/outsider threats.




posted 2655 days ago