Posted on 09/29/2004 10:12:39 AM PDT by Willie Green
It could simply be this year's edition of the morose introspection that sometimes accompanies autumn. But it could also be the case that the relatively short epoch of the United States as the world's sole superpower is drawing to a close.
A U.N. Conference on Trade and Development report released last week indicated that China was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2003, having overtaken the United States. In the past year, foreign investment in the United States had dropped by 53 percent, taking it to the lowest level in 12 years.
The Chinese growth rate is now projected for this year at 9.6 percent. The U.S. economy is estimated to grow only at a respectable but unexciting 4.4 percent, less than half the Chinese rate.
U.S. manufacturing and service jobs are being outsourced to China and India. China is graduating thousands more engineers and scientists per year than the United States.
The United States is dependent on huge dollops of Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds to be able to continue to finance the soaring Bush administration budget deficit. A precipitous drop in Chinese confidence in the health of the American economy would be disastrous in financial terms for the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
The corporate neocons at the Cato Institute disagree with you: THE REAGAN RECORD ON TRADE: RHETORIC VS. REALITY
The Cato Institute is neither conservative nor even "neoconservative" - they are quite openly left-libertarian.
Their analysis is rarely trustworthy, but I'll read it if you can find it.
Sure it does. But I can understand why you'd want to claim otherwise.
Together with the Soviets. When D-Day took place Germany was already losing to Soviet Russia.
If Germans were as numerous as Americans or Russians they would win WWII.
In speculative market prices yes. So was the Tokyo years ago more valuable that US East Coast.
In real physical terms measured by PPP, China economy is about half of America and growing fast. Also having larger population accustomed to lower standard of living might make you stronger (as it did with Soviet Russia versus Germany).
The remaining 50% is much larger than 100% of USA workforce. And agriculture is also important.
I can't open it. Can you at least cite the publication? Is it on the Cato website?
The Allies were actually outnumbered by Axis troops in the European theater.
When D-Day took place the Soviets were not invading Germany yet. They were waiting to see if D-Day was a success.
The Nazis had lost their battle to conquer the Russian heartland, but they weren't yet defending their border.
The Nazis lost to the US and UK in Europe despite the fact that they had the advantage of defensive posture, interior lines of communication and supply and the advantage of numbers.
In fact, in the most famous battle of the European theatre, the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis were able to attack and pin down 80,000 Allied troops with a force of more than 200,000 men.
But the US won that battle, despite being vastly outnumbered and surrounded.
Take your pick:
posted in FR archive(same as previous link)
original article at Cato
If those don't work for you, you better call India to get tech support to check your clicker.
Having half of your work force engaged in agriculture is not the sign of a developed economy. It has nothing to do with the numbers involved in other areas. The US produces its agricultural products more efficiently and even has a surplus to export.
We are not talking about real estate prices but Gross Domestic Product, i.e., the value of all goods and services produced.
In real physical terms measured by PPP, China economy is about half of America and growing fast. Also having larger population accustomed to lower standard of living might make you stronger (as it did with Soviet Russia versus Germany).
I have no idea what PPP is, but there is no way on God's green earth that China's economy is about half of ours. Your second line about "a larger population accustomed to a lower standard of living might make you stronger" is lunacy. If Germany did not have a two front war, it would have defeated the Russians without too much of a problem. It was the allies providing the Soviets with food and munitions that enabled them to resist the German onslaught.
"Its GDP per capita is $900 compared to the US $35,200."
China
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html
Population: 1,298,847,624 (July 2004 est.)
GDP: $6.449 trillion (2003 est.)
GDP per capita: $4965
United States
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
Population: 293,027,571 (July 2004 est.)
GDP: $10.99 trillion (2003 est.)
GDP per capita: $37505
Purchasing-power parity (2003):
European Union 10,840 28,600 379
1. USA 10,400 37,600 290
2. China (mainland) 5,700 4,400 1,287
3. Japan 3,550 28,000 127
4. India 2,660 2,540 1,049
5. Germany 2,180 26,600 82
6. France 1,540 25,700 60
7. Britain 1,520 25,300 60
8. Italy 1,440 25,000 57
9. Russia 1,350 9,300 144
[...]
(World Countries by Gross National Product)
LOL
The CIA explanation: In the Economy category, GDP dollar estimates for all countries are derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations rather than from conversions at official currency exchange rates. The PPP method involves the use of standardized international dollar price weights, which are applied to the quantities of final goods and services produced in a given economy. The data derived from the PPP method provide the best available starting point for comparisons of economic strength and well-being between countries. The division of a GDP estimate in domestic currency by the corresponding PPP estimate in dollars gives the PPP conversion rate. Whereas PPP estimates for OECD countries are quite reliable, PPP estimates for developing countries are often rough approximations. Most of the GDP estimates are based on extrapolation of PPP numbers published by the UN International Comparison Program (UNICP) and by Professors Robert Summers and Alan Heston of the University of Pennsylvania and their colleagues. In contrast, the currency exchange rate method involves a variety of international and domestic financial forces that often have little relation to domestic output. In developing countries with weak currencies the exchange rate estimate of GDP in dollars is typically one-fourth to one-half the PPP estimate.
Actually, I wouldn't characterise China as Communist.
They're a totalitarian dictatorship with a (moderated) market focus (somewhat fascist at times in their economics) and all they have of communism are the trapping and banners.
This can have its own problems with economic growth but is far more viable than old-style Chinese communism...
In my opinion it is more subtle. Communism according to its inner doctrinal logic does not have to be in the previous Soviet form. Leninism/Stalinism could be understood as a deviation from the classic path.
Communist revolution was supposed to take place in the most developed countries and at the time when the production is so advanced and automatized that it would lead to the permanent crisis of overproduction and mass joblessness. This would expose the fundamental contradiction of the late capitalism - poverty of redundant workers in the midst of unafordable plenty.
This crisis would happen after the globalisation absorbed all possible markets and capital could not find new profitable locations. Global oversupply would be chocked by the reduced demand.
The solution would be the socialisation of the means of production and socialist mode of distribution. The owning classes would resist same was as feudal aristocracy resisted inevitable ascendence of capitalists. The final push would be the proletarian revolution led by the Marxist intellectuals.
Deviation of Leninism was to experiment with the revolution in the underdeveloped Russia in order to ignite it in Western Europe. When the expansion to the West (Trotsky)failed Stalin proclaimed possibility of building socialism by force in one country - Soviet Union.
Later Soviet leaders declared possibility of co-existence of capitalism and socialism in which West would mature toward socialism and East would catch-up in material development.
Recent Chinese model could be seen as a reversal to the pre-Stalin approach, to the much more radical form of Lenin's NEP. Capitalism has to be developed first under the supervision of Communist leadership in China, globalisation would have to be promoted all over the world until the conditions dreamt by Marx become actualised. This would an improved version of Mao's Great Leap.
BTW, I wonder sometimes if the Western globalists and leaders of freemarketeerism do not hope for the same development.
While I share Willie's fears about the heedless buildup of the Chinese military industrial complex in the name of free trade, I wonder how many Enrons and Global Crossings lie behind China's massaged numbers.
So are you suggesting that the U.S. is immune from inefficiencies and corruption? And hence, cannot fail?
Now you are saying that communist China will replace the US as the worlds only super power?
I believe it's all too possible.
Do you also think your life would be better if you lived in China?
That's one of the stranger twists of logic I've encountered. Assuming that you're serious, the answer is "no". Being a superpower does not necessarily mean that the citizens' lives are better.
Communists stink BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.