It’s official: America is now No. 2 (China Biggest Economy)

MarketWatch ^ | December 4, 2014 | Brett Arends

[C19fan]

Hang on to your hats, America.

And throw away that big, fat styrofoam finger while you’re about it.

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.

It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.

[rey]

“I watched a show a couple days ago that was just talking about the biggest, tallest, whatever. When it came to roads and bridges I was shocked to see the number of super high, super long bridges built by China in the last few years. They now have like five of the highest bridges in the world, all built recently. Structures like this can’t be built by weak nations.”

Yeah, but it is all made in China. Have you ever owned anything made in China? Chances are you no longer own it and had to throw it out.

[11th Commandment]

The is bull. The IMF uses output in “real” terms of goods and services, meaning what would be the purchasing power of China adjusted for higher prices of the US. There is some validity to this but there are numerous (I think six) adjustments to make to GDP to equalize output which the IMF ignores. The biggest one is artificial lending often found in tightly controlled countries. China pumps the vast majority of lending into failing and stale state businesses. The IMF does not adjust for this.

[11th Commandment]

Nominal GDP:

1 United States 16,244,600
2 China 8,358,400
3 Japan 5,960,180
4 Germany 3,425,956
5 France 2,611,221
6 United Kingdom 2,471,600
7 Brazil 2,254,109
8 Russia 2,029,812
9 Italy 2,013,392
10 India 1,875,213

[JoeFromSidney]

Years ago I did some research on the capacity of dams. It turned out that the most recent dams, the biggest in the world, were all in the Soviet Union. Reason: their rivers are bigger than ours. I suspect that Chinese bridges are setting world records because they have huge rivers. However, the fact that they can build them does imply considerable competence on their part.

[Nateman]

Is that Obama ‘GDP’ or REAL GDP? They’ve been cooking the books by including debt as part of the total. Real GDP growth has been negative since the Communist/Mozlem took power.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Thank you, Emperor Obama.

[precisionshootist]

"Years ago I did some research on the capacity of dams. It turned out that the most recent dams, the biggest in the world, were all in the Soviet Union. Reason: their rivers are bigger than ours. I suspect that Chinese bridges are setting world records because they have huge rivers. However, the fact that they can build them does imply considerable competence on their part."

Exactly, I'm not saying we should have the highest bridges as we don't have a need for them. What I'm saying is just the fact that China has the economic power to accomplish these feats is evidence they are on the rise big time. Contrast that to what is going on in the US. What colossal structures are we building? Power plants?, nope we are shutting those down. Mines? nope again, shutting those down. Space program? well we are working on self esteem for the Muslims with that. What about that border fence? Any small group of farm hands could have built more fence in the same time frame.

[Jack Hammer]

Thanks are due the Marxist Obama and his never-saw-a-business-restriction-we-couldn’t-love Democrat congress.

[Beowulf9]

I can believe it but at the same time there have been stories like this (China looks bad, Europe looks worse)...so how can this be? Btw, got this one off of Freerepublic, just down the ways from this China is now #1 thing. http://www.businessinsider.com/r-euro-zone-risks-return-to-contraction-china-outlook-smoggy-2014-12

[Morpheus2009]

I wonder when China will finish the Sky City arcology? (Large skyscraper with farms, malls, condos, etc. all contained inside).