The threat to the Burgeoning Bourgeoisie

In the last edition of the economist there was an article, the ‘burgeoning bourgeoisie’ that said ‘for the first time in history more than half the world is middle class’. It also highlighted that while the increase India and China has been, as expected; massive the middle class has increased dramatically across all emerging markets. There are for example 80 million more middle class Sub Saharan Africans today than in 1990.

This growth in prosperity is something I have been working for throughout my career, but it is fragile and millions of lives now rest on the decisions that will be taken in the developed world over the coming months. The banking crisis has left millions of the world’s population in real peril and the longer the crisis continues the more of this new middle class will slip back into poverty.