Chief Investment Strategist, The Freeport Society
Hello, Fellow Navigator.
It seems that tinkering with the Social Security retirement age isn’t only an American phenomenon. China just announced it would be raising its retirement age as well. For men, it’s going from 60 to 63. For women in non-management roles, it’s going from 50 to 55. And women in managerial roles will retire at 58.
OK, I’ll start with the obvious questions:
Chinese men were seriously retiring at 60? And women at 50!?
I understand it wasn’t that long ago that the typical Chinese worker endured grueling conditions in a sweatshop. In the early 1960s, the average life expectancy in China was only about 50 years. So, it made sense to offer retirement at 50 or 60. The average worker wasn’t going to live long enough to cash the checks anyway.
But things change.
Life expectancy in China today is about 78 years, which is comparable to the U.S. and much of the developed world. Still, a guaranteed retirement of 20 to 30 years is just a tad too generous, even in a “workers’ paradise” like China!
That’s clearly not sustainable. And given China’s demographic outlook, the government had to act. They don’t have a choice. Their workforce is dying.
Literally.
It’s a crisis with no real solution. But the collapse in China’s workforce creates some fantastic opportunities for us.
A Population in Decline
China’s population began its decline in 2022. The most recent estimates from the United Nations show the country’s population shrinking by 109 million by 2050. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the entire populations of Germany, Belgium, and Sweden combined.
Not only is the country shrinking. It’s aging. Already, about 21% of the population is 60 or older. In about 10 years, fully a third will be at that milestone.
It’s hard to imagine even a wealthy country like Sweden being able to support a third of its population in retirement. The Swedes have a generous social safety net, but they’re not that generous. How’s that going to work for a middle-income country like China?
Why This Matters
We know how this happened: China’s infamous One-Child Policy, which was strictly enforced between 1980 and 2016.
But here’s why it matters… and why it ties into two of our core investment themes at The Freeport Society.
China has been a major exporter of deflation for the last 40 years. It’s why manufacturing in America and most of the developed world was “hollowed out.” China was cheaper than the competition, and they exported those lower prices. It’s a large part of why American inflation fell throughout the 1980s into the 2010s.
Well, all of that is finished. China can’t export deflation anymore because its cheap labor supply is long gone. Chinese workers are increasingly a scarce commodity.
And this would be true even if trade with China were allowed to continue unfettered… which it most assuredly isn’t.
In short, the trend of deglobalization is accelerating.
At The Freeport Society, we’re believers in free trade and in the Thomas Jefferson ideal of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations.”
Unfortunately, that ideal is dead.
The United States and China are decoupling.
Most of this is political. As China has gotten wealthier and more assertive on foreign policy, the U.S. moved its foreign policy focus to Chinese containment. This is one of the few policies on which the Biden and Trump administrations seemed to agree. Trade with China – particularly when it comes to cutting-edge tech – is to be curtailed.
But even without the political tensions, deglobalization to some extent was going to happen.
The COVID-19 pandemic gave us a crash course on how dangerous it is to have a complex, far-flung supply chain. It took years to untangle the supply chain snarl from 2020. No American company can ever put themselves in that position again.
And given that China is no longer a bottomless pit of cheap labor, continuing to manufacture there makes less sense by the day.
Of course, this creates massive opportunities for us. Deglobalization means a massive rebuilding – to the tune of trillions of dollars – of America’s industrial infrastructure, and we’ve been actively playing that trend in The Freeport Investor.
Back in December, we added both Caterpillar (CAT) and Quanta Services (PWR) to our model portfolio.
As a premier maker of heavy-duty construction vehicles and equipment, Caterpillar is especially well positioned to benefit from the deglobalization underway. Since 2000, its shares have risen by 1,100%. Under the current circumstances, I expect that trend will only continue.
We’ve only had Caterpillar in our model portfolio for nine months, and we’re already sitting on open gains of 20%.
As for Quanta Services, we’re showing open gains of 25%. The company builds infrastructure solutions for the electric and gas utility, communications, and pipeline and energy industries worldwide. Specifically, it builds smart grids designed to maximize efficiency. That’s exactly what American manufacturers and businesses will need to contain prices on locally produced goods.
Of course, those two stocks are only the tip of the iceberg. I see limitless opportunity in this trend, and it’s a core investment theme of The Freeport Investor.
As and when opportunities arise, I will email my Freeport Investor subscribers with instructions to back up the truck and load up on more of these two gems. And, of course, I’m always actively looking for new opportunities in this space. As I find them, and once I’ve vetted them thoroughly, I will reveal the details, with clear instructions of when to buy and what risk-management strategies to put in place.
You can easily join us so you never miss an opportunity to grow your wealth as deglobalization accelerates. Simply follow this link.
To life, liberty, and the pursuit of wealth,