As a public speaker and demographic consultant, I speak to dozens of people in Australia every week about the state of the economy and the general mood in their industry.

There is quite a bit of pessimism around.

The prolonged skills shortage, the housing affordability crisis, and geopolitical concerns affecting the economy are the biggest issues.

Today we go back to the basics and explore where in the world you would want to position yourself, your business and your investments right now. Spoiler alert: You will be more optimistic about Australia after reading this column.

Let’s start with a full world map. This world map starts with 216 countries and territories. The question of how many countries (or continents for that matter) exist is terribly divisive and deserves a standalone column soon.

When you decide where to invest your money, time, energy, or career you ask a similar set of questions to eliminate more and more countries before arriving at a relatively small selection of nations that you would consider.

In practice, this is usually an unconscious process that we follow.

Today we shall be a bit more structured about things.

To kick things off, we will want to invest into a country projected to see at least a bit of population growth. Declining nations have ageing populations, shrinking markets, and face serious structural challenges that can lead to political unrest as well (see my column about the German state of Thuringia). Let’s keep it simple and omit all countries with........

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