Geographic Balancing

I am fond of saying that what happened in the US in the second half of the 20th century will take place in much of the rest of the world in the first half of the 21st century. The end result will be vastly more geographic balance of wealth and prosperity than we had at the beginning of this millennium.

Today, in a NY Times article on Toyota (TM)'s annual profit guidance to wall street, I came across this comment by Toyota's President Katsuaki Watanabe:

“Our profit structure has become more geographically balanced, with growing contributions from resource-rich countries and emerging countries”

The Times goes on to say:

Toyota, now in a dead heat with G.M. to be the world’s largest car company, said most of its recent profit growth had come in new markets like Brazil, China and Russia. It said the growth helped offset sluggish sales in the United States, traditionally Toyota’s largest and most profitable market, and other mature economies like Europe and Japan.

This is consistent with comments I heard at the hedge fund event I attended on wednesday. The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the middle east, are quickly attaining economic purchasing power parity with the United States and Western Europe.

I may have to amend the statement I started this post off with. It looks like it may not take 50 years for the balancing to occur. It's likely to happen in the first 25 years of this century.