Asia Consumer Class Rises, World’s Center of Gravity Shifts

Here’s one of the more intriguing data sets of the week, this one being of the very long-term variety from a McKinsey report about how urban areas in the East have grown dramatically in recent years, causing a profound shift in the world’s economic center of gravity.

Perhaps more interesting than the 2000 to 2025 period is the one up until the industrial revolution that China decided to sit out. In the grand scheme of things, it appears that us Westerners are just a fading blip on the radar, dominating the world’s economic activity for a scant five percent of the time on the graphic above.