CBC Digital Archives

David Foot: the 'young people' problem

They tell you how to save your money and your financial future, what causes a recession and how you can survive it, where to invest your hard-earned cash, and perhaps more importantly where not to invest it. They are the money experts whose prognostications and analyses are echoed across the media. The CBC Digital Archives looks back at some of Canada's best-known financial forecasters

"If you don't create jobs for young people, they either leave or they tear your country apart." This powerful assertion from professor and author David K. Foot is based on his unique approach to understanding economics. By combining two disciplines, sociology and economics, Foot is able to unearth data that is both practical (baby boomers buy minivans) and startling (Iraq wants a ground war because it has so many young men).
  In this 1999 clip, Foot sits down in the park with Evan Solomon and gives him a demographer's view of individualism.

• David K. Foot, the author of Boom, Bust and Echo, doesn't claim to be a financial expert per say. He is interested in how changing demographics affect the economy. "I'm talking about two-thirds of spending patterns, two-thirds of how people use their time."
  • In a quote highlighted in this clip, Foot singles out 1961 as "one of the worst years in this century to be born." To these folks, he says "You're one of a huge crowd of late baby boomers, also known as 'generation X'". 

• Foot has twice received (in 1983 and 1992) the University of Toronto undergraduate teaching award; in 1992 he received one of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education's 3M awards for teaching excellence, which recognizes outstanding Canadian university educators.

Medium: Television
Program: FutureWorld
Broadcast Date: July 14, 1999
Guest(s): David Foot
Host: Evan Solomon
Duration: 18:46
This clip was edited for copyright reasons.

Last updated: June 7, 2012

Page consulted on April 2, 2013

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