The investor needs only ask one question this year: how will
global growth continue? The US expansion is long in the tooth.
Europe is slowing, and China’s ability and desire to continue to
build the Great Wall of Debt is fading. Growth requires
increased employment, higher wages, or higher productivity.
The former is brought forward through the expansion of
business and investment while the latter through increased skills
or technology. Thus, an investor must ask how employment
grows at cycle peaks, the need for higher wages, or how
productivity arrives without requiring fewer workers? Our
answers are short: little employment growth, restrained wages, and profitable productivity growth
that lowers the need for further workers.