The Great Curve is flattening. Japan saw it coming

The U.S. and other developed countries are hitting a ceiling.

Life expectancy stopped climbing. It's stuck around 79 in America, while Japan peaked at 84.5 in 2021 and then dipped. Mortality rates halved over the 20th century, then hit a floor around 1980 and haven't budged. GDP per capita growth fell from 2% in 1950 to 1% in 2000 to half a percent today. The one big exception was the mid-century Great Compression of 1945–1973, when growth ran at nearly 4% — an anomaly, not the rule.

Japan felt this first. After the 1990s bubble burst, their GDP went sideways for three decades. Now the U.S. is catching up. Productivity growth slowed around 2000. Innovation rates are leveling off. Education gains are flattening. This isn't a recession or a business cycle — it's structural. We're not falling behind. We're just not climbing as fast.

Why this matters for us: when growth stalls, the people who built their lives on the assumption that things would keep getting better — the kids who went to school, the families who bought homes, the workers who stayed put — need to rethink what's coming next.