Glad you brought up the UK because I think they illustrate my point rather well. I don’t know how long it’s been since they were the world’s dominant economic power, but it’s not like life sucks in the UK because they’ve dropped to 5th or 9th or wherever depending on who’s doing the ranking. Being #1 is great from a pride standpoint, but not being #1 isn’t going to change the lives of most Americans in ways they’ll notice or care about. I don’t expect the USD to be the world’s reserve currency forever, but I suspect it will be replaced by a new universal currency, not another national currency.
I think it’s the opposite, the UK is in some serious trouble economically even before Brexit, they’ve lost a lot of business to NYC, traditional blue collar jobs are dwindling and have become too reliant on the financial sector and service industries. North of London there are so many dead towns and unhappy populaces… look at the increasing council estate system and education problems, the loss of industry, mining, innovation, impetus, they are clutching at an ever shrinking pie. They are caught in a negative feedback loop and every born UK person laments the loss of that status. When I was there this summer they kept complaining about the exchange rate and it’s actually quite dire there, and sad to see. If you explore the growing social, economical, political, demographic problems that plague them right now I think you’d agree - sure they still live first world lifestyles I see some real trouble for them in the next 50 years. Sadly I feel Canada is going the same way on the social front and there’s not much you can do to change that track.
3.5% defense spending to GDP is such an odd comparison that i hear quoted a lot.
its not like the us government can tax the entire 20t GDP of the US, and if they did, it prolly wont remain 20t.
i think the ratio should be defense spending to US total federal budget. which is ~15%.
or defense spending to us total federal revenue. which is 21%.
in addition, how can we say, we are the best, if we run a budget deficit and a trade deficit of about a trillion. its absolutely retarded.
anyways, i think this is the best metric:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth
85 trillion us vs 24 trillion in china
our investments alone increase our net worth far more than what we would spend. hahaha
US Growth 5% CAGR, 4 trillion increase.
China is 10% CAGR. 2 trillion increase.
but chinese are better investors lol.
Nice pull ltj.
can we get fact check on this
The US niche is easily lost. Remember what happened to their manufacturing niche?
It’s the century of Asia. And Asia have their own search engines. CN will never let bigoted Facebook run wild in their country, that would be insane. Nobody will trust US media-tech because it’s loaded with spy gear, so countries will have to build their own (China, Russia, etc have complained about this). Even Americans now hate their own tech-media oligopoly.
Americans are overconfident and not preparing for the future, they are going to keep getting ouchies.
No country in asia trusts china lol.
Wed rather let american companies that are at least somewhat answerable to law rather than thieving chinese companies that pose a threat to national security
Actually Xi Jinping’s international approval is very high, he scored higher than Obama. Daddy Pandy is very cool. Hell, I trust CN way more than US.
American corporations ARE the law, they sure as hell don’t answer to it.
I actually agree with most of this; however, how many of China’s biggest tech companies are just blatant rip offs of US companies? Has China proven it can be innovative on its own?
Lots!
I worked in Asian IP for many years and could go on forever about it. CN innovation is exploding, patent filings are off the charts, quality is still lagging the US but improving fast.
But I don’t think innovation needs to be CN’s niche. Seems like US should be working hard to not lose it as theirs.
I agree for a long time they were rip offs but now their innovation stage has begun. Economist ran an article about it a while back - I wasn’t familiar with the products to start listing them off but there are a few out there. The other thought would be, even if they innovated new tech it’s unlikely we would know about it as average electronics consumers - they don’t even need to market to the US until later in the product life cycle to be sustainable, they have their eco system to support them. That’s probably one of the scariest aspects of their rising income levels. If you think of it objectively, Chinese people are only buying apple for the status - on the technological front, an android device from a dozen other manufacturers can provide almost the same if not better functionality.
I was just in Amsterdam and I was amazed at how much their tourist economy is now geared towards Asians. Made me realize we likely aren’t witnessing the rise of Asia as vividly as Europeans. There seemed to be some racism towards the Chinese with service industry people I spoke with. One thing I heard several times is that Asians make a mess in bathrooms.
The chinks. At least the rich ones are very conscious about brands. I got half chink cousins. Plus I’m 3 percent chink so I can say it too. So says my genetic DNA test.
All the above stuff strikes me as true after living in Asia for a decade.
Stuff like iPhone is still a status symbol. Lots of people I talk to would rather have iPhone, but the price is SO much higher, they go with Samsung or Xiaomi. But as the local brands improve iPhone loses its cool, I think AAPL are now losing some market share in CN? Also US tech companies don’t normally understand the Asian market special needs, but AAPL has been an exception (chicks love their biggie-pones).
And yeah, there’s plenty of “racism” (I don’t really like that term because the liberals have blown it so out of proportion) against Chinese in Asia. There are areas in Korea (Jeju island) where they have infiltrated, driven up prices, carry on with their own culture which doesn’t quite mesh with the local culture. Same story as in Vancouver CA. But yeah, Eurasia sees the rise of CN clearly, for the US it’s more something they hear about, but don’t really get.
nah, the US is legit
except for obesity/heart disease that is crushing us …
^ WTF?!
that’s god damn art, but so discomforting.