Harry Dent in Australia September & October

• Tweet

• Tweet

There is a hand­ful of peo­ple around the world whose work I respect because it intel­li­gent­ly address­es facets of our cur­rent predica­ment that I don’t.

The eco­nom­ic and demo­graph­ic ana­lyst Har­ry Dent is one of those peo­ple.

Har­ry uses empir­i­cal data about con­sump­tion lev­els and pop­u­la­tion growth to accu­rate­ly pre­dict eco­nom­ic trends. A per­son­’s con­sump­tion pat­terns change as they age, so infor­ma­tion on the rate of growth of pop­u­la­tion and its age char­ac­ter­is­tics can be used to pre­dict what con­sump­tion will prob­a­bly be of a giv­en com­mod­i­ty some years in the future.

Of course this has to be com­bined with oth­er data—about nation­al income lev­els, etc.—but it is a reli­able guide that Har­ry has used over the years to antic­i­pate such things as the Japan­ese slow­down when oth­er peo­ple were pre­dict­ing a con­tin­u­ing boom there.

Har­ry explains some appli­ca­tion of his approach in this YouTube video—one exam­ple I like is why the age 42 is the peak age for buy­ing pota­to chips. It’s because the medi­an 42 year old male has a 14 year old child…

Demo­graph­ics aren’t part of my cur­rent mod­el­ing because, in a nut­shell, they would swamp my debt dynam­ics. How­ev­er Har­ry’s work does take the lev­els of debt (and its demo­graph­ic dis­tri­b­u­tion of course) into account, so we find our­selves very much on the same wave­length.

Har­ry is com­ing out to Aus­tralia very short­ly, giv­ing talks in Syd­ney from Octo­ber 11^th-13^th, and in Bris­bane on the 14^th-16^th. He’s speak­ing at the sort of wealth preser­va­tion or mak­ing sem­i­nar that is not my usu­al cup of tea, but since Har­ry’s part of it, I’m hap­py to bring it to the atten­tion of Debt­watch read­ers.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out this web­site:

http://securethefuture.com.au/

Har­ry will also be out here next week, so keep an eye out for him on var­i­ous news pro­grams.

The fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion on Har­ry was sup­plied by the “Secure the Future” event organ­is­ers.

About Har­ry Dent

Har­ry S. Dent, Jr. is a high­ly regard­ed long range eco­nom­ic fore­cast­er and finan­cial newslet­ter writer. Har­ry Dent bases much of his analy­sis on demo­graph­ics and oth­er pre­dictable cycles in the econ­o­my which are often over­looked by main­stream econ­o­mists.

Dent received his B.A. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na, where he grad­u­at­ed #1 in his class. He earned an MBA from the Har­vard Busi­ness School as a Bak­er Schol­ar.

Dents eco­nom­ic newslet­ter reviews the glob­al econ­o­my through demo­graph­ic trends focus­ing on pre­dictable con­sumer spend­ing pat­terns, as well as finan­cial mar­kets. He has writ­ten sev­en books, of which two recent ones have been best­sellers in Aus­tralia. His last book also appeared on the New York Times Best Sell­er List.

Here are his books to date:

• The Great Depres­sion Ahead (2009)
  
• The Next Great Bub­ble Boom (2006)
  
• The Roar­ing 2000s Investor (1999)
  
• The Roar­ing 2000s (1998)
  
• The Great Jobs Ahead (1995)
  
• The Great Boom Ahead (1993)
  
• Our Pow­er to Pre­dict (1989)
  

Har­ry Dent first rose to promi­nence in 1989 when he pub­licly announced in his first book’ Our Pow­er to Pre­dict’ that — con­trary to main­stream eco­nom­ic views — Japan was about to enter a long term defla­tion of stocks and real estate. By the ear­ly 1990’s his pre­dic­tions of the Japan­ese econ­o­my were real­ized and the con­nec­tion he made between demo­graph­ics and eco­nom­ics began to gain seri­ous cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Har­ry Dent went on to pre­dict the great boom of the late 1990’s and ear­ly 2000’s in his 1993 book ‘The Great Boom Ahead’ and in the late 1990’s also began warn­ing of a great bust, to occur between 2008- 2012.

The 2008 GFC mate­ri­al­ized almost on cue and in 2009 Har­ry Dent released his lat­est book, The Great Depres­sion Ahead, which met with crit­i­cal acclaim and appeared on the New York Times Best­seller List.

In his lat­est book “The Great Crash Ahead” ( to be released in Aus­tralia Octo­ber 2011) he out­lines why gov­ern­ment stim­u­lus is doomed to fail­ure and the eco­nom­ic hav­oc that lies ahead.

Dent reg­u­lar­ly lends his eco­nom­ic exper­tise to the media on tele­vi­sion, in print, and on the radio, and is sought after as a pan­elist and speak­er for inter­na­tion­al forums around the world.

He is a reg­u­lar com­men­ta­tor on Fox Busi­ness News, He has appeared on “Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca”, PBS, CNBC, CNN/FN, and has been fea­tured in Bar­ron’s, Investor’s Busi­ness Dai­ly, Entre­pre­neur, For­tune, Suc­cess, US News and World Report, Busi­ness Week, The Wall Street Jour­nal, Amer­i­can Demo­graph­ics and Omni.

Har­ry Den­t’s view on Aus­tralia

Har­ry Dent has said that if there was one coun­try in the world he would place his mon­ey in the loom­ing finan­cial cri­sis, it would be Aus­tralia.

How­ev­er, he also says that many of the cur­rent strengths need to be tak­en advan­tage of now – for exam­ple, the cur­rent strength of the $AUD will not endure long term and it will set­tle back to around 0.80 to the USD.

He also has urgent warn­ings for Aus­tralians;

• Do not be com­pla­cent in the face of the world’s eco­nom­ic woes
  
• Beware of the cur­rent bub­ble in pre­cious met­als
  
• Aus­tralian prop­er­ty prices and stock mar­ket will fall, in line with a long term glob­al defla­tion that has already start­ed to take hold around the world.
  

Har­ry Dent believes that the world is enter­ing a long term defla­tion and delever­ag­ing of debts is the only solu­tion to this stage of the eco­nom­ic cycle. No amount of Gov­ern­ment stim­u­lus will reverse this sit­u­a­tion and he believes par­tic­u­lar­ly that pri­vate debt is too high and must come down.

He also states that tra­di­tion­al ‘buy and hold’ invest­ment strate­gies (such as neg­a­tive gear­ing) are not like­ly to work in a defla­tion­ary envi­ron­ment and equal­ly, invest­ments in pre­cious met­als are not safe havens dur­ing defla­tion.

Har­ry Dent sees the new emerg­ing super economies will be in India and Asia and that giv­en Aus­trali­a’s prox­im­i­ty and rela­tion­ship to Asia, we are a coun­try blessed to pros­per in the years ahead.

He is com­ing to Aus­tralia to present his find­ings, gath­ered over the last 23 years, in order to help every day Aus­tralians tran­si­tion into the new Glob­al Econ­o­my.