2. The "buying power" of our 300M people is largely dependent on the accumulation of debt that now exceeds $19 trillion. This doesn't even include future pension and health care obligations. The average U.S. citizen today has a $60,000 debt hanging around his or her neck, and over time they have less and less to show for it. Put in different terms ... how much purchasing power does a person with a net worth of -$60,000 really have?
>>1. There’s no reason why the “buying power of our 300M will exceed the buying power of those 2+ billion people in perpetuity. We have many natural and historic advantages over other countries in this regard, but we are becoming increasingly hampered over time as well.
You are precisely correct. Every year of trade imbalances that are paid for with fiat currency lowers the buying power of our 300M and raises the buying power of their 2B. We are literally selling them the rope they will use to hang us...or more correctly, we sold them the technology to make the rope that we will purchase so they can hang us.
When you get into purchasing power parity, the economic power of the middle class American worker vs the middle class Chinese worker gets even worse.