Next Eleven

We love watching The Voice. We get so excited when those blind auditions start, because we love trying to predict who’s going to make it to the finale. It’s heart-pounding stuff.

The “Next Eleven,” known to its friends and neighbors as N-11, is a group of countries that are predicted to become the biggest economies of the 21st century (that is, after the BRIC countries, or Brazil, Russia, India, and China). In Voice terms, this fantastic eleven is...goin’ to the live rounds.

So who are these up-and-coming economic stars? They are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea, and Vietnam, and according to Baron James O’Neill of Gatley, British economist extraordinaire, these countries are poised to spread their financial wings and take off. He says that they’re going to end up having the largest economies and highest per capita incomes of this century, after those BRIC guys. Four of them even have their own special acronym—MINT for Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey—and the Baron is so excited about their long-term potential that he made a BBC radio show about it. We plan on checking it out…provided it's not on at the same time as The Voice.