Until these countries have freedom for every citizen, they ain’t got sh!t on us.
Some nations may have industries that perform particularly well as compared to the US, such as the French fashion industry, but the French have crushing taxes to support socialist spending schemes that may burden France far into the future even though its new president wants to cut them.
Sure HK has a higher level of economic freedom, but how much can you do on such little land area?
There is more venture capital activity in California, or even Texas for that matter than in the entirety of most European nations.
The US has the greatest rate of new business formation. For one of the reasons this isn’t going on in Germany, just try to fire a German worker and you will quickly find out why their unemployment rate is more than twice that in the US. (If things are so great in Germany, why is that rate so high?)
The personal tax burden heavily influences personal wealth. A country can have high earners who have high taxes. If government social spending is counted as personal spending (after all, it is the same, isn’t it??) then a country can appear to be “catching up” to the US on paper, yet by other metrics such as the size of the autos, the amount of living area, the type of foods consumed, the types of hobbies, the citizens could be substantially less prosperous on a personal level.
Also, there are limits to wealth, or shall I say that as people become more prosperous some will decide to divert their energies into activities that don’t bring in any extra income, and may cost a lot. I know a lot of people who make all they need to live on and devote their extra energy to charity. I know a nurse who spends a good fraction of her time working in a birthing clinic in a poor Caribbean country. When she runs low on money to support her there, she comes back to the midwest and picks up a nursing job for a few months. How much of this goes on in areas of the world that are “catching up” with the US? I know several doctors who do similarly. I know very wealthy auto dealers who spend more time managing their charities than they spend with their dealerships.
Not only is this living proof of US prosperity, and productivity, but it shows that keeping score by the “catching up” metric doesn’t tell the whole story about US prosperity. How many wealthy people from other countries take time for such work? At best, we see people acting like Bono- their “charity” is to lobby GSEs (Gov’t Sponsored Enterprises) like the UN and the World Bank to spend taxpayer money on the poor.
Wealthy Arab’s idea of charity is Hamas.
So, “catching up” to the US is a very nebulous concept, and subject to selective and biased definitions which conveniently support studies like this one.
Mercantilist crap.
It’s a lot easier to catch up when you steal and copy rather than innovate.
What it better lead to is more inspections of food imports. These damn 3d-world countries don't give a rat's a** what they put in food.
Let me say a few words about Hong Kong which are lost to outsiders.
The era of small government is effectively over now in HK, as Donald Tsang famously said a couple of years back that “Positive non-interventionism is over”. The buzz words are government assistance in alleviate poverty through government acts. Education wise HK is producing generations of idiots that those with good results and the children of senior-ranking officials and rich are sent abroad.
The government is talking about putting money on the film industry to help its plight, and there are talks of buying back private BOT infrastructures (such as WHC and EHC) raised. And socially the government’s hand is starting to stretch into every facets of citizens’ lives with things like Signs, Idiotic Government PR Clips, and Police prosecutions of public smokers etc.
The businessmen in power are not truly pro-free market. They are like barons in a rationed economy and wanting government to enact laws favourable to them. An engineer with 8 years of experience may work for a 60-hour week for, what, US$4,000 a month - even less than a lot of senior sales consultants with only Form 5 education. Those are the top grow fat out of a quasi-market structure.
This is against a backdrop that most people who campaign for liberal democracy for Hong Kong have social democratic leanings as well, caused by the territory’s businessmen unwilling to lend support to push “one-man, one-vote” to elect the CE and directly electing all members of the Legislative Council. My guess is that HK will become more social democratic as it democratizes which is not good news.
The nanny state is coming to Hong Kong, and I doubt it will bode well for the territory. And even the current state of Hong Kong is no paradise either.
It is a Globe of foolish idiots, who believe that America is great only because of money..... Thank God I am American.
Most people from every other country in the world, would sell out their country for $100 US, a hooker, and a bottle of vodka.... and yes I’m talking about Putin.
Excellent. Now can we stop all the foreign aid money we dole out annually and instead invest it in seeding private schools here in the US?
It’s been well over a century since the American Industrial Revolution that put the USA from about fifth place to first in industrial power. Since then not much on that front, which allows any other country to follow a similar path and end up in a competitive position. If the USA wants to regain its former overwhelmingly dominant position it will need another Economic Revolution. This could be done quickly and strongly by Repealing the Treaty.