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The above charts — taken from a recent Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch called "The troubling decline in conscientiousness" — should be viewed as alarming. For some of our key personality traits, it is showing a decline in extroversion for all age groups, a decline in agreeableness (except for the 60+ crowd), a spike in neuroticism (again, except for the 60+ crowd), and a massive decline in conscientiousness, particularly for young people aged 16-39.
Why does this matter?
Well, according to Burn-Murdoch's article (tweet summary here), the two strongest predictors for overall life success are conscientiousness and neuroticism. These traits are more important than a person's socio-economic background and raw cognitive abilities. They predict career success, the likelihood of getting a divorce, health and life expectancy, financial stability, and more.
Conscientiousness is defined as "the quality of wishing to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly." But simply speaking, conscientious people tend to dependable, disciplined, and committed. They are careful and deliberate, rather than careless and impulsive.
Neuroticism, on the other hand, is generally defined around emotional reactivity. Psychologists define it in terms of the degree that someone is prone to things like anxiety, self-doubt, and sadness. Someone with high neuroticism might, for example, feel easily stressed, worry excessively, and/or dwell on past mistakes. This trait predicts outcomes that run in the opposite direction of conscientiousness: lower career satisfaction, higher divorce rates, reduced life expectancy, and so on. It can also heighten risk perception, which makes neurotic people more likely to overlook potential opportunities.
So once again, it is alarming that these two traits are shifting meaningfully in the wrong directions for young people. Burn-Murdoch puts at least part of the blame on our hyper-connected and high-distraction digital lives. He also hypothesizes that AI could exacerbate this problem. If you're a high conscientious person you might use LLMs to supercharge your abilities; whereas if you're a low conscientious person you might use them to further check out.
The good news is that these traits can be trained. We are all products of our habits and environments. And I'm finding it personally helpful to even just write about these findings. It is also reminding me of a good friend of mine from grad school who used to always espouse something that he liked to call "casual intensity." His thinking was that you need to be on top of things and get shit done. But don't stress about it. Be confident in your abilities.
I think that's a good way to try and approach things.
According to the Financial Times, Cape Town's population (metropolitan area) grew by 27.6% from 2011 to 2022, landing at approximately 4.77 million. Last year it was estimated at 4.97 million. At the same time, residential property prices increased by about 160% during the period from 2010 to 2024, outpacing all other cities in South Africa. Last year the average price of a home increased by 8.5% in Cape Town versus the national average of 4.5%. And as is the case in most desirable cities around the world, this has some people worried.
We all know what happened this week:
Donald Trump’s decision on April 2 2025 to enact sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. They will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets across the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped to create.
We also know it was based on highly questionable math:
His “reciprocal” levies amount to a back-of-the-envelope calculation. They take trade partners’ US trade deficit in goods as a share of imports from that country, and then divide it by two. This is not a calibrated attempt to equalise tariff and non-tariff barriers facing US exporters, perceived or otherwise. It is, however, a reckless repudiation of all trade agreements the US has signed, as well as a deeply flawed plan to attract foreign manufacturing investment.
So what happens next?
Assuming this behavior persists, the US will continue to isolate itself from global trade, and the rest of the world will pivot and quickly move to trade more freely among themselves. This maybe isn't as problematic as some might think. Today, the US represents about 13.5% of global goods imports, which is down from almost 20% in 2000. And the biggest drivers of global growth are now China and the Euro area.
To that end, here's a fascinating study from IMD Business School that looked at how long it will take for various trading partners to completely wean themselves off of the US. And to do this, they looked at non-US import growth for the 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, and then extrapolated.
But who and what is to blame?
Is it because of tourism? It is estimated that there are some 25,800 active short-term rental listings in the city. Is it digital nomads? South Africa recently launched a Digital Nomad Visa program allowing foreign nationals to live and work in the country provided they can demonstrate an annual income of at least 650,976 ZAR (US$37,500). However, this is a recent thing. Is it foreigners coming with US dollars, euros, and/or pounds? Or is it because of internal migration, which South Africans refer to as "semigration?"
As always, it's a debate. But I think the outcome we are seeing makes intuitive sense for at least three reasons. One, Cape Town is an objectively beautiful and amenity-rich city sandwiched between mountains and the ocean. See above cover photo. It also has a warm and temperate climate. The average high in January (their summer) is 29 degrees and the average high in July (their winter) is 19 degrees. This is a huge competitive advantage — albeit a natural one.
Two, it's a relatively safe place. The above FT article quotes a transplant from Johannesburg saying, "You can't ride your bike in Joburg unless you are in a walled-off estate." If you have the means, that's a strong motivator to move somewhere else. And it's understandably easy to assign a lot of value to safety and security. "Sure, this home may be more expensive, but I can walk to places and ride my bike without fear." That's something worth spending money on.
Lastly, we are all becoming less tethered to specific locations. Digital nomadism and remote work are here to stay. But I don't think this means that people are going to just decentralize and move to the middle of nowhere. I think it means that people are going to increasingly vote with their feet and choose exactly where they want to live their life. What this means is that the need to create better places is only going to become more important. Because more than ever, every place is now in a global competition for talent and investment dollars.
Cover photo by Tobias Reich on Unsplash
What this chart says is that by the end of this year, some 70 US trading partners could, in theory, replace the loss of the US export market so long as non-US growth continues as it did in the past. And by 2039, the number jumps to over 140 trading parties. 2039 is obviously a long ways away, but I think it's noteworthy that year one in this specific chart already starts with 70.
Importantly, Canada does not fall within this initial bucket. Based on the study, we are in the danger zone. That is, exports to the US make up more than 10% of our GDP and it will take more than 10 years for full export recovery. But again, this is based on historic non-US growth. So all this means is that the status quo cannot continue; we need to dramatically increase this growth rate and do it as quickly as possible.
I hope our leaders recognize the urgency of this, because nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the US right now. We need to be hyper focused on full trade recovery as soon as possible. Canada needs to be open for business to the world.
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