The World’s New Population Champ!

Plus: Millennial renters better get used to being millennial renters. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

April 20, 2023

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Good morning.

Forget about Russian and Chinese hackers. Just keep us safe from our own feckless bureaucrats.

It’s never ideal when a government employee sends the confidential personal information of roughly 256,000 American consumers to their personal email, putting it all at risk of being shared or hacked. But it’s downright weird and not a little ironic when the civil servant who did so works at the literal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Not helping matters is that the leak from a government email account to, we assume, a Hotmail account, also contained non-public information on 45 institutions supervised by the agency. So, we have to ask, who Ps the Cs from the CFPB?

Morning Brief

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India is overtaking China.

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Millennials are finally cracking the housing market.

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Olive oil prices are putting the squeeze on Italian families.

International

India Will Soon be the World’s Most Populous Nation

Move over, China. For the first time in more than three centuries, there’s a new top dog in the global order… in terms of population, at least.

India is set to become the world’s most populous nation by mid-year, according to new data released by the United Nations. With a staggering 1,428,600,000 residents and counting, the Southeast Asian subcontinent is home to nearly 18% of the global population. But can the country’s economy support its population growth?

Baby Boom

Some perspective: India’s population exceeds all of Africa, Europe, and the combined populations of North and South America. And it should retain the top spot for decades to come. Over half its people are under the age of 30, so with India’s world-leading 23 million babies last year, the UN expects its total population to hit almost 1.7 billion by 2050. China, on the other hand, witnessed a decrease in newborns last year (9.6 million) for the first time since the 1960s, and will see its population contract to around 1.3 billion by the mid-century mark.

But size isn’t everything, and China’s economy far outpaces its neighbor to the southwest. With a gross domestic product of roughly $3.7 trillion, India just this year overtook the United Kingdom (population: ~67 million) to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. Germany and Japan sit just ahead with economies of roughly $4.4 trillion a piece, while China sits at No. 2 at $19.4 trillion and the good ol’ US of A holds the top spot at $26.8 trillion.

But India’s economic growth isn’t nearly fast enough to employ the millions of young people pouring into India’s workforce:

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The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 7.45% in February, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Young people are particularly afflicted; in December, over 40% of those ages 20 to 24 were without a job, and over 10% of 25 to 29-year-olds were unemployed.

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“A lot of the growth in India is driven by finance, insurance, real estate, business process outsourcing, telecoms and IT,” Amit Basole, professor of economics at Azim Premji University in Bangalore, told the Financial Times in March. “These are the high-growth sectors, but they are not job creators.”

Manufactured Success: To boost employment, India has taken a page from China and is hoping to become a manufacturing super-hub. But it’s starting well behind the eight-ball. The manufacturing sector employs roughly 35 million people in the nation, and is growing slowly despite loosening labor laws and billions in government incentives. Rory Green, chief China economist at TS Lombard, told the FT that even if China’s economy completely stalled out and India’s exploded by 10% each year, it’d still take the latter nation roughly 20 years to surpass the former.

– Brian Boyle

Real Estate

Most Millennials Now Own a Home

They did it! They finally did it! Well… half of them, at least.

Over 50% of millennials now own a house, according to US data, meaning the most talked-about, most irritable, and possibly (if you ask them) the most shafted generation in modern American history is finally growing up, at least financially.

The Realty World

The laundry list of life complaints from 25-to-39-year-olds about what their generation has endured is certainly legitimate: a post-9/11 malaise, the financial crash of 2008, the world-shifting times of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the upside-down land of rapid inflation and climbing interest rates. Today’s larger down-payments and surging mortgage rates have indeed placed a high barrier to entry for first-time homeowners.

But all that obscures a rosier reality that those habitual complainers often gloss over: the historically low-interest rates through much of last decade, and depressed home values in its earliest years, made the 2010s one of the most fortuitous times ever for prospective buyers — allowing many of the millennials just old enough to remember Michael Jordan’s heyday to get into the market before the pandemic caused home values to spike. It’s why the generation is now split between the haves (a house) and the I’ll-never-ever-haves (a house):

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51.5% of millennials now own a home, according to US Census data from last year. Around 42% of the generation owned a home by age 30, compared with 48% of Gen Xers and over half of Baby Boomers at that age.

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On the other hand, an increasing number of millennials say they’re locked out for life. Roughly 25% of millennial respondents to a 2022 survey from real estate site Apartment List said they plan on renting forever, up from around just 14% in 2019.

Location, Location, Location: It’s not exactly surprising knowing where millennials are having the most home-owning success. After all, not every space on the Monopoly board costs as much as Boardwalk or Park Place. According to Bloomberg, 63% of the cohort in Grand Rapids, Michigan own a home, while just 27% do in Los Angeles. The only question now is if coastal types can afford the cross-country U-Haul rental…

– Brian Boyle

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Food

Rising Cost of Olive Oil Rocks Italian Cuisine

(Photo Credit: Curtis Winters/Flickr)

Oof, marone!

While the cost of making an authentic Margherita pizza in Italy – the world’s tastiest price index – is still 23% higher than it was roughly two years ago, it is beginning to decline. Unfortunately, the price of olive oil – the dish’s most versatile ingredient – continues to surge, leading many families to spend more on their favorite fundamental, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Hard Squeeze

The modern version of pizza was born in Naples in the 18th Century and has remained an Italian essential ever since. It’s a simple meal with only a handful of ingredients with olive oil being its most basic. It’s like the Italian Frank’s RedHot (if you know, you know). Because pizza contains so many staples of the Italian diet, the so-called Margherita Index is something of a bespoke Etruscan cost-of-living signal.

So even though Italians can sigh with relief as the cost of grains, cheeses, vegetables, and energy start to head back toward pre-pandemic levels, you can understand if they’re throwing up their hands and bellowing as they have watched olive oil prices price jump 27% in the past two years:

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Italy may be a large consumer of olive oil, but Spain is actually the largest producer of the viscous liquid, covering 40% of the world’s inventory. Severe droughts have devastated Spanish olive farms, and the European Commission estimates the country will deliver only half its regular output this year, which in turn raises prices.

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Despite that decline in stock and increase in cost, Italy is expected to consume 486,500 tons of olive oil in the fiscal year 2022/2023, compared to 481,700 tons the year prior, according to – yes, you’re reading this right – The Olive Oil Times.

Order out: A homemade pizza does sound great, but let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a hassle. Even after you’ve made a mess putting all the ingredients together, you still need an oven capable of maintaining at least 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Thankfully, the cost of going out for a pie in Italy is only 8.5% higher than it was in 2021. So heed the advice of Christopher Moltisanti and “don’t disrespect the pizza parlor.”

– Griffin Kelly

Extra Upside

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Fake Drake: The story behind the viral AI generated Drake and Weeknd song.

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Legalize it: Pot growers sit on costly surpluses to abide by federal ban.

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