A few weeks ago, Frazer Rice and I recorded a podcast that built off the fascinating work of Bruce Mehlman, a political consultant and strategist who founded Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas.

Mehlman produces a quarterly update on political trends that I always find to be thought provoking.

Here is a link to De-Global Ten Trends Defining the New World. It is well worth a look, but not until after you listen to the podcast.

Sometime around 2010, populism began to take over despite the chart showing a subsequent decline of those living in extreme poverty from 16% of the world’s population to 8% and a further increase of the world’s middle class from 35% to 45%.

One might have thought that a 214% increase in the world’s middle class and a 450% decrease in those living in extreme poverty over a 30+ year period might have stemmed the tide of political opportunism to be found in pandering to the “left-behind” in richer counties.

Silly me, ever the optimist.

Here’s the link to Frazer Rice’s “Wealth, Actually” podcast on Globalization.