Banana Republic

[Fat Abe]

Maybe the demise of a superpower is inevitable. When Great Britain lost its #1 status after WW2, it probably did not mind, since its former colony, the United States assumed the position. I don't know how you feel, but I feel like an old man whose country is headed to number 2 or lower rank, all within my lifetime. I wake up depressed every day. These are the facts according to a MarketWatch blog:

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-bud...d=bb-budgeting

China: $123 trillion economy by 2040, three times bigger than America

All this became obvious while reading the Foreign Policy Journal. Earlier this year Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago published a feature article in Foreign Policy titled: "$123,000,000,000,000: Why China's Economy Will Grow to $123 Trillion by 2040."

...

Read this and weep, or get mad as hell: By 2040, in just one generation, 30 years, here's how Fogel sees the rapidly emerging new world order, with China as the world's sole superpower economy and America a distant second, a has-been on the global stage ...

Ignore the Goldman Sach references in the blog, as this is a red herring. I have seen the enemy, and it is us.

To add insult to injury (one of my favorite cliches), we, the US, are also losing influence in our own hemisphere.

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-si...isphere-2010-5



Dear lord, Brazil will be eating our lunch, not figuratively (since they grow their own food), but literally. How does this make you feel? Did we deserve this fate? Don't cry for me, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc.

[Falcao]

China can have a larger economy than USA because they have like 4 times more people than USA. I also think China will need more than 30 years to reach a similar welfare. Moreover, I think that China will slow its pace as some unresolved issues, like pollution, undemocratic government, overpopulation, take its toll.

[ardeegee]

Nothing remotely surprising about our status falling. No "empire" lasts forever. The people who think that the current situations are "the end of history" and how geopolitics will be from now on and that America has the "right" to own and control the world forever are just fooling themselves.

A thousand years from now, the current configurations of nations and national influences will be something read about in the ancient history ebooks, just like the setups of a thousand (or two thousand, or five thousand) are today. If our time on the top of the heap lasts a just a few decades or a couple centuries it is still just a flash in the pan where history is concerned.

Personally, I'd be fine with seeing some humility brought to the US. There are people living in countries all over the world who are perfectly happy with their lives even though their government isn't the 900-pound gorilla telling the rest of the world what to do. I'd like to think that Americans as a whole would be better people if we didn't have the swaggering arrogance that comes with brute force power.

[Salgueiros]

I don't see what is the problem with sharing. I am happy to see other countries becoming wealthier, and more developed. It is good for everybody to have more people and countries capable of fulfilling all their potential.

In my personal case, i never felt smaller or less valuable just because i am from a small european country. There is room for all.

Me, as a Portuguese, am loving seeing Brazil becoming what it was always supposed to be, a giant. I love that country and its people, and i do believe they will bring a different and valuable view on things that we can surely appreciate. We all profit by having more people at the table.

[wodin]

What ultimately concerns me is my own lifestyle and standard of living being preserved. Surveys have repeatedly listed the American standard of living being near the bottom of the top ten, depending on the criteria selected. Usually Scandinavian or other northern European nations are at or near the top. And they are in no way near the top as regards super powers, or even powers.

I don’t particularly care who the 800 pound gorilla is unless it affects my lifestyle or standard of living.

[ardeegee]

BTW, I find this part to be silly:

"with China as the world's sole superpower economy and America a distant second"

No, it looks like we will be at best third-- behind China and India.

[Salgueiros]

You can always look at the bright side of this change.

Imagine instead of having x number of people researching a cure for cancer you have x times 10 or twenty!! And now imagine this in ALL fields of knowledge. That is what having millions of people with more available income, better education and better universities can provide to the world.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

and America a distant second, a has-been on the global stage ...

Well, China does have three times the population of the US.

And with the way parts of the US has been resolutely anti-science recently, are you really surprised?

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Well, China does have three times the population of the US.

And with the way parts of the US has been resolutely anti-science recently, are you really surprised?

Actually, more than 4 times-- official numbers circa 2009 (according to Google) are

China: 1,324,655,000
US: 307,006,550

or 4.31x times the US population. India's population (in 2008, again via Google) is 1,139,964,932, or 3.71x that of the US. Put together, that's right at 8 times the population of the US. Assuming for the sake of calculations that the proportion of the population that is school-aged is the same for all three countries, that means that the top preforming 12.5 percent of India and China's children is equal to the entire student population of the US. (I know that the ratios aren't equal-- but not far enough off to make that number not gigantic.)

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

Imagine instead of having x number of people researching a cure for cancer you have x times 10 or twenty!! And now imagine this in ALL fields of knowledge. That is what having millions of people with more available income, better education and better universities can provide to the world.

Exactly-- the world isn't a zero-sum game. Imagine the possibility that the human population produces, on average, one person in x number who has the right kind of mind to devise new idea or tools that are capable of changing the human condition in an important way. Pulling a number out of my nether regions, let's say it is one in a million. When the world's human population was a few tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand to a few million, the pace of change is slow-- it takes megalots of people to produce lots of transformative genuseses.

And, with China and India having several times more people than the US, given educational and economic opportunities, they are going to produce several times more of those extraordinary people than the US.

[Salgueiros]

....and another positive thing is that the better it becomes living in those countries, the less pressure will exist in emigration. Less people trying to get into the US anyway they can. People will move if they want and for better reasons others than just being desperate...

[nohmi2]

When reading Tom Holland's book 'Rubicon' a few years ago, I was surprised to read his parallel between the Roman Empire and the USA, and how they both became 'fragmented' by becoming too powerful.

China has the real weight of numbers unfortunately. Maybe the 'westernised' world has a need to get back to basics again, and become self-sufficient by supporting our own manufacturers, farming industry etc., and allow some of the inventions which have been suppressed to come to light.

Unfortunately, our dependance on oil has held us back in many fields. Wouldn't Teslar's Free Energy have made a difference, but unfortunately 'big business' interests have prevailed and we appear to have lost interest.

Cheers

[wodin]

Originally Posted by nohmi2

Unfortunately, our dependance on oil has held us back in many fields.

Balderdash! The US has plenty of oil (and alternative energy), what we don't have is the will to develop it.

[nohmi2]

Originally Posted by wodin

Balderdash! The US has plenty of oil (and alternative energy), what we don't have is the will to develop it.

..................and why doesn't the US have the will to develop it?

Cheers.

[Joebill]

Originally Posted by nohmi2

..................and why doesn't the US have the will to develop it?

Cheers.

When I was at university, back around 1989, I was in an environmental science class. For my paper, I wrote about all possible forms of generating electricity. Solar, wind, underground/surface temperature difference, deep underwater/surface temp diff, microwaves from space. And some others I have forgotten.

Only oil, coal, and nuclear electricity generation was viable. Most of the rest was barely in alpha test. Some was in beta test.

I have several books on making my own wind generation equipment. Hard to scale up past one house.

Yes, I know about the huge windmills put up by various companies and the US government. They disrupt bird migrations, and they interfere with each other by creating air vortices. While many areas have wind, it isn't consistent.

The making of the batteries to store it, are highly toxic in their making. So with solar cells.

Electric cars ? Where is the massive megawatts of eletricity to recharge them overnight goig to come from ? At present, coal or nuclear.

While I think nuclear generation of electricity is going to happen, the US power companies tend to put them on top of fault zones and earth quake areas.

As for plants being turn into oil, they chose corn. bad idea. There are plants that have a better oil to cost of growing ratio. And never mess up your food stocks by using it for other things. Yes, I know peanuts are different, but I don't believe corn has as many possible uses as peanuts.

I think a scientific breakthrough, the type that cannot be predicted, will have to show up to save humans.

[Joebill]

Originally Posted by wodin

Balderdash! The US has plenty of oil (and alternative energy), what we don't have is the will to develop it.

One-third of the US import of oil comes fomr Canadian oil shale.

But other nations should be working on development of better sources as well.