This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Task Number One For The Next US President: Tell The Nation The "Age Of America Is Over"
After a weekend full of empty (or not) Chinese posturing, Marketwatch's Brent Arends has an interesting tidbit to add to the China vs US debate. "The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed. For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China." The year? 2016. So perhaps having a 5 year head start in selling the bonds of what will soon be even an official former superpower is not such a bad idea. "It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington, D.C., right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power." And here's why pretty soon America may be left without presidential candidates: "According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy." Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
More from MarketWatch:
Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.
But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.
That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.
So what happens in a purchasing power parity world? Nothing pretty.
The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.
Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and is rising.
Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.
This is sad. Even with the rhetorical narrative paragraph breaks confirming it.
This is more than a statistical story. It is the end of the Age of America. As a bond strategist in Europe told me two weeks ago, “We are witnessing the end of America’s economic hegemony.”
We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. for so long that there is no longer anyone alive who remembers anything else. America overtook Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back
Arends is correct: "one time" stimulus is no longer having an impact in what is a disastrous secular trend.
What the rise of China means for defense, and international affairs, has barely been touched on. The U.S. is now spending gigantic sums — from a beleaguered economy — to try to maintain its place in the sun.
It’s a lesson we could learn more cheaply from the sad story of the British, Spanish and other empires. It doesn’t work. You can’t stay on top if your economy doesn’t.Equally to the point here is what this means economically, and for investors.
And while nobody on Zero Hedge will need this refresher, this paradigm (yes, we hate the word) shift means bond investors are about to start getting a series of very rude awakenings. Even assuming the Fed sells an infinite number of 30 Year put options.
Some years ago I was having lunch with the smartest investor I know, London-based hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. He made the argument that markets are reasonably efficient, most of the time, at setting prices. Where they are most likely to fail, though, is in correctly anticipating and pricing big, revolutionary, “paradigm” shifts — whether that be the rise of disruptive technologies or revolutionary changes in geopolitics. We are living through one now.
The U.S. Treasury market continues to operate on the assumption that it will always remain the global benchmark of money. Business schools still teach students, for example, that the interest rate on the 10 Year Treasury bond is the “risk-free rate” on money. And so it has been for more than a century. But that’s all based on the Age of America.
No wonder so many have been buying gold. If the U.S. dollar ceases to be the world’s sole reserve currency, what will be? The euro would be fine if it acts like the old Deutschemark. If it’s just the Greek drachma in drag ... not so much.
And while our new Chinese overlords are not big fans of the rapidly devaluing linen/cotton combination, they sure like their shiny metals. Which is why the Hunt brother high is likely about to be taken out in a matter of days if not hours.
h/t AB
»
- 18831 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
God...they can't all move to Canada...
No they cant..But that very topic of location is the most important thing in a man's future imo..That very thing has given me many hours of pondering and data research..And the question is where would be the best location to hang out for a few years, I dont have decades btw..
So let me get this straight, China, that place holding trillions in yet-to-be-defaulted debt and where real estate just plunged by 27% in one month is going to rule the financial world... Hmmm perhaps someone should ask all those Madoff investors just how wealthy they feel right now...
China will plunge with the rest of them, and worse than many...
That, sir, is nothing short of HERESY. Everyone knows that the US will implode tomorrow and the Chinese will rule the Heavens and the Earth.
(It wouldn't be posted on the Internet if it weren't true.)
I don't know about the ' Chinese will rule the Heavens and the Earth' but it won't make any difference to the US implosion, which is now inevitable...
You might want to hedge that bet a little bit. I've heard that story for close to 30 years now. What's that old saw about history and rimes?
'Few Americans appear to be aware of it, he said, but 1985 may mark the "critical turning point when Japan surpasses the United States as the dominant economic power in the world, and America begins a precipitous decline."'
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-24/business/fi-17251_1_japan-exports
The world is a very different place to what it was 30 years ago...
Seems to me that if it hadn't been for the monster bank fraud of auction rate securities this whole mess would have gone pear shaped a lot sooner, though the effects wouldn't have been nearly as bad...
It's still the end of the line for the US if you ask me...
How does "The world is a very different place to what it was 30 years ago..." differ from "This time is different"?
Such a scenario is certainly possible. The question is whether it is probable. I think not, but that is unknowable. I think China's problems are just as bad as the US's, just less transparent, and with inferior solutions. Also, the notion that China will decouple from the West, that Chinese domestic demand will save the day, is difficult to swallow.
At any rate, I remember the mass hysteria surrounding Japan, how they already owned Hawaii and the other states were soon to follow. (ZH would have been a big hit in those days.) The arguments were very similar to those advaced now vis-a-vis China: US has huge and unsustainable debt, Japan is net exporter to US, etc.
The US unlike Japan has no market to export into, so there is no point in manipulating the currency lower to foment exports. This time IS different. This time the 'engine of world growth' just blew up, which means that unlike 30 years ago we now have far too much productivity and no market that can absorb it through cheaper and cheaper credit.
Chinese domestic demand will not save the day because China is full of poor people who just like in the West rely on credit for their wealth at every level of society. There is no one to export to unlike 30 years ago, which means that this time it ends, badly...
A US failure is a matter of mathematics, I don't know how you can describe it as 'unknowable'...
I was comparing China now to Japan then, not the US. Also, I was ridiculing the Chinese domestic demand story, not advocating it.
US failure is by no means mathematics. Even in the event of inflation, default, war, pestilence, a Glen Beck presidency, life will go on. Although it may not be deserving, America is better positioned to weather the upcoming storm. The USSR is instructive in this respect. Some people got fucked (older workers and pensioners mostly); others bought professional sports teams.
Ok Bobby I have no idea what your point is now.
Why compare China now to Japan then when the entire global economy is different?
'America is better positioned to weather the upcoming storm. The USSR is instructive in this respect.' What does this mean?
The US is fucked, completely and utterly fucked. The US relies entirely of western governments to conspire to fix debt markets. Without debt markets you have aircraft carriers you can't afford to put fuel in.The US is therefore no better off than the USSR, which has less debt outstanding by far.
A fractional reserve system of credit banking at 10% reserve means you can lend 9 times your deposits in the form of new loans. When those checks come back from other banks for payment you are insolvent by a multiple of 9, which requires that you either sell those loans to another buyer or failing that to the Fed for liquidity. It requires a bailout by multiples of 9 each time the checks come back for payment and its failure is exponential. That's what TARP, QE1,2 and 3 through 25 is. The failure of the US is a matter of mathematics, pure and simple otherwise you allow these lenders to go bust, which the US categorically will not do ergo you go bust in a big way. There is no way the US can avoid it...
At least we can agree that China is not able to step in and fill the void.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
China 2011 is Japan 1985 - poised to take over the world at the expense of the flailing, uncompetitive, overindebted US.
Don't forget that the US and/or US banks could simply default. I don't think any US creditors would invade as a consequence. As for the fleet, we can afford to fuel them with domestic oil. It is the underwater owner of a McMansion in exurbia that would be fucked, not the military.
Also, not to be callous, but faced with the choice of killing the American way of life or detonating a few megatons over some godless communists, what do you think our leaders would choose? What would you do? Kill some Chinese or resign yourself to serfdom?
The British empire should have taught you that you need money to fight a war, or at least access to a lender with money of value.
Do you not think the Chinese have nukes too?
If the US defaults what happens to interest rates? More to the point, how does the US finance its government if it can't sell debt at 2-3%? Like any other banana republic it will need to print to make up the shortfall which means that the money supply will explode by multiples (of in this example 40) driving commodities ever higher REQUIRING the US to print ever more money. And all that just to stand still with todays budgets.
Without debt markets the US cannot finance a war, and even if you could you will not win because you will be nuked yourself. The US could not win a war against the UK or France, never mind China or Russia which have many more missiles. You are fucked, utterly...
You might want to double check the number of nukes China has, as well as the state of their military in general, aside from the size of cannon fodder. Domestic resource base might also be interesting, especially in the face of a naval blockade stopping shipments from Australia and South America.
We agreed that Chinese domestic demand in the short term is likely a myth. Thus, absent US/EU demand, what exactly will fuel the Chinese economy? Who will have difficulty financing their government?
Boy, you just jump right off one horse and onto another don't you? :) You said that this was the same old "end of US dominance" argument from the 80s. He proved you wrong, and now you're changing the subject.
Your comment about the US simply nuking China to stay dominant also didn't fly, because they would nuke us back. It wouldn't be worth it in the least. So he proved you wrong and you're changing the subject.
He never said that China wasn't screwed. They are if we are, though which of us is in a better position to weather the storm is debatable.
How are you going to pay to feed the chaps on these ships whilst you blockade?
Are you expecting domestic oil producers to provide this oil for free without regard for their own food, heating or otherwise own well being?
You seem to be having difficulty with the concept that being destroyed once is no better or worse than being destroyed twice, or fifty times, so it doesn't matter how many nukes China has. They have enough to take you out, and one nuke can take out an entire battle group so your fleet is all but useless.
I think you need to go and think this one through, because heresy apart, ZH is absolutely correct in my view. This is one shower of shite from which no one will emerge smelling of roses...
.
Only Fools comparing China to Japan.
Way TOO MANY differences!
You won't solve America's problems by focussing on China's [assumed] problems. Focus on the job at hand!
So you really believe that 27% number?
Can you think of a good reason why I might not?
Check reality light is blinking?
which means what?
Which means the 27% is completely useless, if not outright fabricated.
The news came out 10 days ago. If it were true, China's financial system would have imploded by now.
Or the Chinese bureaucrats managed to cover up in a few days what took the Bernank and co. half a year (September 2008 to March 2009).
Or all numbers were based on lies from the start, so the 27% would be too.
But imagine for a second the number is true. You expect prices will fall another 27% or so next month? How did the prices get so high to begin with, for example what was the monthly change for the 6 previous month? How many people actually bought or sold to those prices??
Ok Malek, you may be right, so what in your view then is the figure and why?
'How did the prices get so high to begin with?' You'll have to forgive me for quoting from my website but here goes...
'Assuming that we are 100 in number and we each have a house valued at $1 then the entire housing market would be valued at $100 in total on a mark to market basis, but if I were to now borrow $20 and start buying houses for $2 each, then other homeowners will anticipate that the resale value of their own homes had risen to $2 because that would be the current market rate. That's what "mark to market" is, right? Financial markets would perceive a fair and realisable value on a “mark to market” basis to be 100 houses at $2 each, a $200 market. The problem is that the total investment in our housing market remains at only $120. So where did the other $80 come from?
The fact is that property speculators just perceived 80 non existent dollars from somewhere which don't appear on the balance sheet of any bank, anywhere, yet. The problem is that an independent valuation from an industry professional declaring a market value of $2 is normally sufficient for the borrower to be considered a prime borrower with collateral and we can now go and obtain a credit rating of all different flavours and borrow against it from a bank.
The problems arise when speculators try to spend their 80 dollars on something of value because as soon as I stop buying houses the collateral disappears and the homeowners who took loans against the magically increased equity in their homes are left with the debt and just like the banks, no collateral.'
The reality light is now fully on.
so what is the real value of Chinese real estate?
and do you think they have any real wealth regradless of what that figure actually is...
Your example is too static. If, after the mark to market price has risen to $2, more then a few of the 100 house owners tried to sell thier house for the new price, it would start dropping again. Unless there is a vast number of aspiring home owners (or "bigger fools"?) it is impossible for all 100 house owners to sell at $2. (It was actually already impossible at $1 value.)
So mark-to-market is useless, if you are shifting (selling/buying) such a large amount that you start moving the market [price] yourself.
In the end only realized gains are real gains.
And that is also true for all US banks and such, but suspending mark-to-market in March 2009 after the bubble conveniently ignores the fact that CEOs, quants, and fund managers (and somewhat less stock owners, if they sold at the right time) of those banks profited immensely from the mark-to-market "gains" during the bubble rise. So all of them took real profits on mostly imagined gains. And those paid out monies (and then some) are now lacking in the bank's balance sheets. Now who is going to pay to rebalance capital ratios.
I don't know the real value of Chinese real estate. As with all things it is what willing and able buyers would be ready to pay for it, which can be anything and change any second.
But I do know that their $2T treasury holdings are worth less than 50 cents on the dollar if they try to sell them into the market (before the US stage a miraculous recovery and start producing things again, without destroying the dollar first - errhmmm). And the Chinese know that.
But it sounds like quite a stretch to me that Chinese accounting is more strict (=reliable, truthful) than US and therefore they will declare bankruptcy first, after a disastrous Chinese housing bubble bursts. In the final count only the means of production including resources, or access to resources, matter. And in that field the Chinese are quite strong already and, with a population 4 times the US, would naturally overtake us someday if general mismanagement doesn't hamper them.
Harlequin001: China realestate if FAR LESS LEVERAGED than in the US. Many Chinese people buy using 100% cash, no leverage.
Overall China is a Nett creditor.
China has labor prices that Europe and the US can't compete with.
China the bad news:
The US the good news:
If I was broke in the US and broke China or India, the US would win hands down. That said the decline of energy available to fuel our global economy is going to be a massive re-adjustment that even I doubt I am fully prepared for. Essentially we are all screwed.
Banjo,
'Essentially we are all screwed'
whilst we might disagree on the mechanics we do at least agree on the outcome.
Buying gold is the only viable solution for us little folk. And to store it on a tax efficient basis safely overseas...
Our immigration officials are very sympathetic to refugees of third world countries.
even redneck republikans who hate Canucks and their hockey moms, even more their hockey sons!?
Age of men is over, the age of the silver vigilante has begun!
Does anybody know where the Royal Couple will be going on there Honeymoon?
Mount Fuji...for 'fuk-u' all night, all day revelry!
Antarctica, to hang out with penguins...thoughts on the UK becoming more powerful than us in a few years?
www.forecastfortomorrow.com
How do our soon to be overlords feel about the price of oil? That popped quite well this morning.
I heard Lizard Island..haha
For anyone aspiring to be the next Reagan, I suggest the following Ad campaign..
"Mourning in America"
I would not be so quick to assume that the rise of China is secure. Twice in its history, the Communist Party has seen fit to trade dozens of millions of Chinese lives for power. People who are growing in prosperity and the ability to gain intellectual freedom tend to demand a say in how the country is run, and in particular that government corruption be addressed. This is a giant festering sore in China that could break open at any time and the Party's main weapon will be the same tool it has always used: violent suppression.
We also have the problem of relatively unrestrained expansion of credit and perverse incentives to build, build, build. This sets the foundation for a giant economic adjustment, and social unrest.
Don't knock it! Violent suppression works. Obama and the kids running this carny are just itching to off some non-Kool-Aid drinkers.
Well mission accomplished Barry.
Comparisons to the fates of the Spanish and British empires may be instructive here but I'm more sceptical about the future extent of Chinese superpower. Maybe now is the perfect confluence of technology and circumstance that makes it all possible but I tend to think that if the Chinese really had the knack for world domination they would have pulled it off by this point in history.
If they succeed I think it will be because they build a real, old-fashioned empire with colonial governors, taxes and massive resource extraction and not an American style, indirect, empire-lite.
'massive resource extraction' doesn't work. the British were by far the most successful colonialist power because having taken over a country they installed a system that allowed the colonies to generate wealth and buy more British debt thereby allowing the British to build more warships and pay for more troops, and go attack someone else.
Other colonial powers tried the 'massive resource extraction' and soon discovered that there is only so much resource one can loot, and that once you have looted it the value of that resource at home plummets as its supply increases.
The British realised that there is no end to the amount of someone else's resource you can pledge as collateral for a loan to buy troops to go and collect it whereas the Americans never had any empire they could sell to other than the free-for-all that results today.
"According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump?
If TPTB already have decided that this constitutes the menue of the "presidential soup elect", than we are well and truly fucked even more than we think we are.
Yep, change we can believe in.
LMAO
Acknowledge, this is a DEPRESSION.
AmeriKKKa, bitchez!!
No more "Hope and Change"?
What? It took about 2 months for Hope and Change becom Frustration and Anger.
"The Age of America Is Over" The POTUS is not only okay with that, he has been facilitating it.
I was listening to the coverage of his recent townhall discussion of gas prices. People were adamant that the POTUS needs to take action. The sympathetic media told us how important it will be for his reelection that he handles the gas price situation well. Meanwhile, if you just listen to what he says and observe what he does, it doesn't take an extra eye to see that he doesn't care if gas prices go up.
Furthermore, he doesn't care if this country goes down. Meet BHO, the first anti-American President.
Paradigm shift, bitchez.
He very clearly said "Hoax and Chains."
We need real leadership to get us through this mess...
Palin/Quayle 2012!
Please use /sarc tags in the future. Ktnxbai.
Don't know what Americans think of him but outside the US we consider him a total fool, anc cannot imagine that anybody including himself would take it seriously.
Agreed Kina!
I'm not sure if the Quayle/Palin suggestion above yours was irony!
DavidC
Jamie Dimon / Blythe Masters 2012
How about Ron Paul for Emperor in 2012? I would trust him to take over the entire stinking, sinking ship. Fuck congress and the supreme court, get rid of both for a decade or so. Let's let Ron Paul get us sound money (end the FED and tell the banksters to pound sand), free (and fair) economic markets and get us out of all the endless wars/military commitments. I am so sick and tired of this two party puppet show we have now, it's time for a benevolent dictator not controlled by banksters or the military industrial complex.
But, Barack Obama you turn out for in the tens of thousands to worship his shit, huh?
Why should anybody give an utter FUCK what you people think when you rallied for the clown we have now as if he were the 2nd Coming?
Ditto out here in flyover country. The guys a circus act and no way he could be elected dog catcher much less president.
Ditto out here in flyover country. The guys a circus act and no way he could be elected dog catcher much less president.
Infuriating.
It is because it does not have to be so, but for two classes of people, politicians and bankers, that it is. As we squander everything now to save the present, the potential of America languishes and prepares to die.
And what the world does not understand about this path our nation walks is that it will turn the lights out everywhere when it goes.
God have mercy on the innocent.
And, to stretch those brain cells, a quiz courtesy of Sal and Joe over at Themis Trading;
http://blog.themistrading.com/?p=2415
Hilarious!
DavidC
Always problems but never solutions on this board (other than buy PMs but none addresses how you relever those PMs into something fungible).
So now you say we need to go long chinese bonds...let's figure a win win...the PM part I have down pat...where to put non-confiscatable assets is a totally different discussion?
Thanks
The solution that should have been applied in 2008, and I say should be applied now, is to LET the TBTFs go down, mark their assets to MARKET, not fiction, and then let the responsible banks (yes, there are plenty in the US, who have found it harder and harder to survive because the free money has been mainly to the TBTFs) purchase the assets at those market rates.
Yes, it would mean pain, but that pain would be shorter lived than what's going to happen as a result of the insanity of the last two to three years.
Inflation rewards the irresponsible.
Deflation rewards the responsible.
DavidC
Excellent post
Now ask yourself which group is in power.
Ergo what you wrote is never going to happen!
Being fucked means that you have run out of options. There are no good choices or easy solutions.
now we know how the majority of women feel like for most of their living lives...if they don't have loving husbands...the contrarian types...who never middle finger them...just offer them double portions...when they get hungry. It's a river of no return...but what a trip if its MM who pulls on the rudder-pole.
I have lived and worked in Hong Kong and Beijing for 30 years. China has enormous risks and problems and is much more fragile economically, socially, environmentally and politically than the United States. It's the old problem of putting too much store into straight line projections.
Not that the U.S. isn't in deep shit, just that when it brings down the system China may very well fall apart, the government is barely holding things together with double digit growth.
Well the Great Kublai Khan's empire only lasted 50 years!
He would have done better with a few nukes, no doubt...
The US will recover, China (as the world knows it) won't.
Mission Accomplished - thank the neocon's and the spineless state of Florida that threw the election with Bush II. US electoral college? What a fucking crock of shit full of self preservationists.
DC and democrat state politicians have sold the USA out. Republicans, never said a word as they were sucking corporate dick with the nacho supreme court sponsored by taco bell.
Thousands dead in foreign wars for elite power, while the mainstream media only reports about fags and idol worship.
Burn baby burn, before Mexico invades.
Been to Southern California lately?
Yeah, Gore. The Global Warming scam has made him millions. He's the kind of honest, sane leadership we needed. Especially if we could have had "Honest" John Edwards as Veep. Jesus, do you Kool-Aid types ever look forward?
Clinton granting China most favored nation status: biggest disaster ever committed by a US President.
Americans for the most live in a fantasy world of "me, me, me". They believe that their capitalism and democracy will protect them and their children forever. They have no clue how vulnerable they are.
We are a third world country in the making and it will not be pretty. The blowhards of the financial media puke up the same lies they always have and love the "market signal" that a 15 PE brings. Think about how absurd it really is to buy something at a PE of 15, like that means it is going to go up till it reaches a PE of 20. These same assholes will then talk about a bubble in silver and gold.
If you are not seriously prepping you will be screwed.
Many may believe this shit as long as the checks arrive regular from Uncle Sugar. And Uncle Tom Sugar is the leading proponent of more, more, more. No vote left un-bought.
are there any first world countries left??
Why don't they just dispense with the puppet pretense and install one of the revolving door GS,JPM, Treas/FED elites as dictator? The fascist control system is largely in place already.
RON PAUL 2012!
He has been talking about this for decades...
+++
Ron Paul is controlled opposition. He's been in the Congress since the '70's.
Cock contest. Is anyone supposed to surprised by a number that means nothing (GDP) from two countries that revises every report it puts out? THE END OF HEGEMONY!!! I couldn't think of anything more insignificant.
Maybe when we're no longer Number 1 we can start taking care of ourselves. Instead of defending the world we can invest in our own people. Instead of an empire we can concentrate on quality of living.
I'm waiting for the US to invent TASTY 'fatless' popcorn and peanut butter!
to all ZHers across the globe..answers do not lie with politicians, world bureaucrats, big banks,but with those that hold the guns,the military of the likes of a Patton.
USA can again become a land of success and industry, but not on the failed ideology of marx,or fabian socialists, or one world conspirators..
our economy can be resurrected but it must be on the ashes of the old, this free trade and one world government shibboleth must die must be burned to the ground and repudiated ,banks must fail, many of the elite must meet justice of jail or worse.
America must return to an ann rand type mind set..tarrifs - on any imported manufactured item must reflect one thing.. if it can be made here the attempt at market dumping on America must stop...other countries on their own..our energy must be produced here. no more do we import oil..we use our own oil, coal, nat gas..the economic advantage comes back to America.
The only way for it to happen is for each individual to look in the mirror and exercise their own demons by reconciling their deepest, darkest memories they have surpressed. Otherwise you have no foundation on which to build.
Ayn Rand was a proponent of low or no tarriffs. Which Ayn Rand are you suggesting we follow?
She was often hard to follow, but her basic mindset was that tarriffs are dangerous and limit growth. Opening markets and eliminating tariffs does several things:
1. offers cheaper goods to US citizens
2. forces US companies to be more competitive
3. improves the living standards of other countries, making them better trade partners, rather than potential enemies
4. eventually leads to a standardized trade model in which the labor and pricing won't cause massive moves of capital and labor.
She is/was correct. China is an anomaly due to the severity of their poverty under communism. As they continue to grow, the outsourcing we've seen will moderate and eventually dissipate. Our current "bad times" are actually a harbinger of better times to come as new entrepreneurs step up and compete on equal footing against the Chinese (or Indians, or whomever).
Fact is, while we are suffering a short term setback, I'm willing to bet that in 10 years we'll still be #1 in GDP per capita and China will not be growing as fast as they were.
They have empty cities, empty factories, and too many people still laboring in fields of rice and grains. Their interior holds massive wealth that is untapped, but also massive problems for their political structure.
I bird, ann was not right about everything.,,but about producers keeping profits and low taxation of internal production she was right (hmm) ..
china to me is a non issue..what other countries do is their concern.
when we have leaders who work to benefit the USA then we will be great again,,many golden calves of the NWO elite must be brought down..other countries that benefit from our current geo pol concept of free trade and largess will have to go it alone, we do not need our military in every shit hole on earth, they must come home.
No, she wasn't right about everything. But she was pretty damn close. As it stands, she'd agree with you regarding the military abroad. Which one reason she was a proponent of an all-volunteer army. Her feeling was that, as an all-volunteer army, you are less likely to end up in stupid wars because the people will refuse to fight. Not 100% true (one of the things she was wrong about), but close enough for horseshoes. Fact is, the people ARE getting fed up with seeing their volunteers murdered by idiots around the world, and they ARE calling for troops to return.
China is, absolutely, a non-issue. We've faced down other "threats" in the economic sphere. Japan was going to own everything in the 1980s. I love how that turned out. 1970's and 80's Germany was an industrial dynamo that was going to overrun us eventually - I remember articles about how WWII "losers" were the long term "winners". The fall of the Berlin Wall settled that problem temporarily, but now they are facing bigger issues (funny how our immigration pales in comparison to most European nations').
The idea that David Ricardo was wrong is an idea Malthusians and Mercantilists have operated under for years. There have been brief moments - shining moments for these fools - when they have been correct. But Ricardo still owns the day.
all rise before the true source of all energy : home grown human grey cells and human farts!
Now we can go play darts with chinese parts!
The Spanish went out of their way to keep potential rivals out of the Americas for the entire 16th century. The Brits were also dogged in protecting their economic interest.
We are very different from Spain and Britain. We take a country like China that in 1974 had less than one million cars but over one billion bycycles, we transfer capital, technology and know how then we open up our markets to them allowing them to use an artificial fixed exchange rate to take millions of our jobs while at the same time generating triple diget billions in trade surplus.
Why was this allowed to happen? Was it just Greed?
So sad what has happened to what was once the greatest country in the history of man.
Yes, it was the greed of American corporations and their shareholders. I exported Asian-made products to the United States for 30 years, and our customers nearly always came to us, often after one of their competitors had started importing. Their marketing departments were often giddy at the cost savings, their manufacturing arms our deadly rivals. But the CEO and finance department always came down on the side of cost reductions.
Americans in general still have not fully recognised our empire is declining and it's influence waning. I am amazed and saddened almost daily with the total ignorance displayed by the media and politicians regarding the true status of the once great America.
It is only a matter of time before the "common man" finally wakes up and asks how can this happen to America? Sadly it is already too late.
No...it was part of a much longer-term plan---by interests primarily outside of the US---to demolish US independence and usher in a world government. Note also that Kissinger, the arch neo-con, was instrumental in that transfer to China.
Well, in the short run (meaning, from a politician's perspective, "while I remain in office") we gave them little green slips made of cheap paper, linen, and ink, and they gave us, in return, all of the personalty we needed to constitute WalMart's inventory.
This cost us virtually nothing, and turned the Chinese into something one rung above being our personal slaves.
This seemed like a good idea at the time.
Nobody was really looking at how this might work out in the long run, and stopping it would actually have been pretty unpopular for the USA populace, who long ago grew happily accustomed to the artificially low prices that resulted from the Chinese decision to peg and hold steady their exchange rate.
A good swath of these exported jobs were dirty, dangerous, and bad for the environment. So are legions of diseased and starving unskilled laborers and their families wandering around your neighborhood, but I doubt that folks were really thinking this through to its logical end back in 1975.
The AFL-CIO complained loudly for decades, but never got any traction with the public in general, who were actually happy to see the unions getting what they deserved for setting wage levels for themselves (and nobody else) via legislatively legalized extortion.
A hostile takeover is not unthinkable. We've got lots of resources we refuse to use ourselves. The Chinese are not encumbered by the irrational inhibitions we've foisted upon ourselves. The Chinese have got a surplus of people and could use the additional land area. Wars have been started over a lot less than welshing on a few trillions of sovereign debt.
If you are talking invasion, not a chance - that's just silly.
Invasion?
Invasion of the Dollars. They have 2 trillion, they can buy anything they need to.
Your concept of war needs an update. The invasion will happen after the cessation of formal hostiliites, which will leave the assets more or less in place.
Hey, America only invades helpless, weak and poor countries but rich in resources.
Why the fuck these commentators cannot understand that China is a DERIVATIVE PONZI atop the FRN is beyond me.
YES, if our monetary system is a ponzi, China is a ponzi^2.
They cannot survive parity or nonzero ROI. How many empty cities need to be documented before these people with their linear extrapolations get real? China will have to double their empty city count, double the idle factory count, etc., to reach these figures.
There isn't enough oil supply anymore to permit all of this.
Don't they just have to double their currency?
You both have good points.
Yes, both GDP and the currency exchange rates are manipulated.
My fear is they revalue their currencie then peg/back it with PM's. This would allow them to revalue the wuan/remimbi but would be harder for the currency to be attacked by outside speculators (The learned some lessons from Soros' attack on the Thai baht).
The effect would be to double the price of all out Walmart trinkits and send the US economy into a full blown obvious (even to the sheepl) depression.
Right now two countries are in good Shape, China and Germany. People in both countries are physically working and working hard to make money. Here in America, people are either getting rich by flipping papers in the offices or inflating their ASSESS in the McDonald's.
Agreed, there aren't enough resources, here is a link to what China is currently consuming worldwide from Forbes, spooky numbers.
http://goldandsilverlinings.com/?p=802
This is exactly what your country needs; A president who actually cares about the future of the country and who can come out and admit that things just aren't working as currently arranged. Time for some pain, soul searching, price discovery and jailing of the criminal banking syndicate. Will America come out after that as the preeminent superpower? Probably not, but it might just save itself.
Lack of clean plentifull water and net importers of food for the billions. Yup, thats a recipe for winning long term...
APOCOLYPSE BITCHEZ!
silver dives in the AM..........wonder what happens in the PM?
Very strange dip to say the least.
RON PAUL - Bitchezzzz!
I doubt Ron Paul can handle this mess any more.
Maybe not, but he'd at least get us moving in the right direction.
I wouldn't be surprised one bit if he says, "you know, I don't think I'm going to do this. I tried to tell you for decades and I was marginalized as "fringe". I think I'm going to spend more time with my family and enjoy my sunset years on my property in Texas. Good luck with that. Peace out."
Suppose the GOP doesn't want this can?
We remain the leaders, by a wide margin, in GDP per capita.
That is the true measurement of wealth. China, in their waste of so much economic power, will not last at the top of the heap unless they release their slave labor arrangement. They can't, though. It would create an untenable political situation.
Between building cities in the desert that are empty, excessive pollution and no regulation or control, a burgeoning middle class clamoring for more political power, and an oppressed underclass that is essentially quiet because their basic needs are met though they are overworked and underpaid.........China cannot hold for long. Internal discord may very well rip them apart as they increase their economic strength.
Remember, there is not one "China". There are many regions, many cultures, and many languages. Each one is going to start feeling like they have needs.
You are right Tyler. No one cares. They don't even care enough to consider that this might actually happen.
Orson Scott Card becomes more prescient every day. How long until the Buggers attack?
How long until you tell them to go whistle for the money you owe them? (Try that with the bank and see how long before they "attack").
Yep, our Federal Government including the money cartel Federal Reserve really botched what was a great place to live and prosper.
Looks like all that money and time hassle dealing with the IRS was just a waste of time, and a miserable way to ruin.
Task Number One For The Next US President: Tell The Nation The "Age Of America Is Over"The way I understood this report is that if the currencies are adjusted for the dollar overvaluation and the Yuan undervaluation then China's GDP surpases ours in five years.
The Chinese GDP is heavily manufacturing. The US GDP is heavily fiancial services and health care. You choose which you think has the brighter future.
I don't know the answer to this but: "What is total Chinese debt, consumer and government? What is total US debt consumer and government"?
How much US GDP is simply new debt taken on by this country. Where does GDP stand after 1.6 trillion is trimmed from the federal budget. Imagine when Medicare is history, how many health care jobs go poof! Although for a time grave diggers will have plenty of work, eventually that will run back down to the median.
China is not aviable canidate to be the next superpower. They have out of control inflation,a virtual slave economy,their ghost cities are empty,they have a massive real estate bubble which will implode the global economy. So no China will not be a superpower unless they make major reforms in their government,economy,and military.
TThe most likely scenario is we will live in an apolar world. A world with not superpower.The United States has the worlds most powerful military that the world has ever seen. After the US declines it will be very difficult for any nation to mimic the military might we have had for decades. So it will be a neo dark age. After America is a deluge. Name me one nation who can replace America? China as I said cannot do it.The European Union is going to implode and fracture,Russia has a demographics nightmare in 20 years,the Muslim world is heading to into a major regional war. The UN is powerless and will dissolve. So in all we will have a worldwide power vacuum. There will be no age of China. There will be an age of no superpower.An age of world wide power vacuums,and worldwide Balkanization.
I wouldn't bet on the IMF's prediction.
The deficit ticks higher every day. Obama’s team is starting to shift focus to the elections that lies ahead. Their concern is less America and more Obama. How do we not screw up the third year of the presidency?
http://www.hedgefundlive.com/blog/monday-stock-market-expectations-42511-%e2%80%93-so-go-the-knicks-so-goes-the-market
*** "For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China." The year? 2016." ***
China is a paper tiger... the numbers used to get to a 2016 date are filled with Hopium! Just like Obama supporters (but who else would you vote for? the other Corporate Shill?).
How did China get to these numbers? they are net importers v. exporters, just like the U.S.!http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/china-sees-2011-imports-grow...
How many more empty City's will they need to build?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h7V3Twb-Qk
How many more of the Largest Malls in the World that sit Empty do they need to build?
http://video.pbs.org/video/1218530801/
How many Billion(s) of people have been laid of becuase they can not be fired in China?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_PtbHVoV3U
(if someone wanted to take the time they could source 2 - 3 years of layoffs in China! it is nothing new and it has been sliding for a good lil while now ya'll.)
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=959036729
But lets Not! forget the "People of China" are so very supportive of the Paper Money they have that Gold is in Short supply ALL! the time there..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcdBQJvoVjo
Now lets talk about the dog of an economy the U.S. has.. well, for starters.. our City's may need some work.. but they are not built on monies printed yesterday (last year, year before. what the fuck ever. New Dollars!). Those same City's have been bottoming for a good long while now.. plus a little double dip..
The U.S. is bad.. but compared to the rest of the World? not so much.
Let me ask this question(s)?
If China bottomed, Hard! how much of a hair cut would they take to recoupe the monies we owe them? in Treasuries? if to pay them back, in full all at one sitting? If they really needed it?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f372a8dc-3930-11e0-97ca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1KYAukl00 <--- Russia too? who knew? al be darned!
Let me ask it a different way... if China fell on hard times, would they come to the U.S. for dollars to prop up the China Paper Money?
LMFAO!
Ok, last question... if to calm the people you need to kill the FED and get rid of the Debt held over the peoples heads.. why not let the FED buy its own debt and then kill it.. Thusly, Dead FED and No! Debt!!
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm <-- it has been doen before without popular support.
If we are going to have a One World Government, we will need to be rid of the Bankers who control the Money.. Government will need to control the Money.
I am just asking for the fun of it.. if you want to take it another direction or whatever I am all for it..
Couple of things;
"We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. for so long that there is no longer anyone alive who remembers anything else. America overtook Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back"
OK so give or take, about 100 years, that's not much considering the human timeline. It is like a blip.
As for China, they are stating to have everything in place; they just have to work on quality and start moving away from a closed market;
buying resources
building infrastructure
emphasis on R&D as well as science/medicine
education
legal framework coming along
diversifying trade (US only makes up 20% of their exports)
manufacturing (US $1.65T, China $1.45T)
big deal if they have a couple of crooked officials that took money to build a couple of ghost towns, or that the condo market is overheated, remember these are not NINJA loans, but have 30% LTV down, now 50%. NO DERIVATIVES market in China. Which is what is really killing the US.
The USA is done, did a hell of good job marketing, but like infomercials none of it true, good riddens. At least China is not invading everyone, mucking about in their politics, playing world cop.
Really the only thing I am bummed out about is the fact that I have to learn Mandarin.
Wait. I thought this was the age of Great Britain!?
We're moving out to Costa Rica! Its better to do it now than later.
it's not bad, I really recommend the southern part, more jungle, lush. Not a desert like the north. I don't know about prices in the south but the north it was more expensive for food than the states. (roads are shit there)
well if its all going to be over theres not a damn thing wrong with pulling our forces out of asia and letting the muslims run that region of the world... LOL
As I said before China will not be a superpower. Its economical,political is more fragile then ours. When China implodes it will face massive discontent. Imagine 100 million citizens up in arms for revolution in China. We will most likely have an apolar worls of no superpower. All the instruments of globalization will dissolve(UN,World Bank,IMF ect). In short we will enter a Neo Dark Age of no superpower. Europe has a dark future. They have a rising muslim population and a declining christian europe population. Europe will most likely be a big Yugoslavia with ethnic civil wars in each nation. Tension between Chrsitian nationalist and islamic zealots will lead to conflict in France,Germay,Spain,Britain,Sweden,Switzerland,Italy etc. The muslim worls will fragment with continuing regional wars. Asia will be a big free for all. Africa will balakanize and the Americas will deal with civil upheval maybe civil war. So we will have a neo dark age and a world with no superpower.
I have to disagree.
China is using green confetti to buy natural resources all over the world. and US is blowing up $3.75 worth Tent in the desert with borrowed $14,800,000.00 Missile.
Glass-Steagall
It's not fucking hard. It does get to the root of the economic problem.
Gee and it happened just after we ditched tarrifs and went with WTO/NAFTA and Free to be imperially pauper'ed trade.
There was never a thing called globalization, only imperialism under a new name.
But it was catchy wasn't it....not really.
Even then what made us great wasn't because we were #1, it's because we held fast to our American ideals that brought us to #1.
The American Era is over? Well when during the America era, was it actually american. Seems like to me we just went from little bit imperialism starting with truman, of course after being corrupted by Federal Reserve decades earlier to set the stage, to full blown imperial dumbasses in the last decade or two with NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Steagall and implementation of CFMA (you see derivatives were MODERN, and we all love MODERN, it was the turn of the century...how can we not pass modern things for a new modern future age and new century...even MILLENNIA!....there's that bullshit psychology again), etc.,etc, etc, etc etc.
America has become Fraiser, and we are fucked. Unless of course, we cancel it out, take a mulligan, and Glass-Steagall the fraud.
Then we can be what we need to be, and that will end up being #1....at least for the forseeable future. Who knows what China will eventually become, but they aren't ready to shit, since they are depending on the Queen's monetary system to sustain itself. American can thrive without it. That's a big difference, and one the Chinese have barely begun understanding. (and same goes for us...due to forgetting)
Glass-Steagall or let it all rot, and you know you can already smell it.
But I love the guys we have
Idiot Businessman
No Change NerObama
Magical Underwear Mitt (with Obama's healthcare plan precursor, reaganomics background, and complete dipshit, and TPTB crony)
But the author is right about one thing, we're heading towards British and Spainish (at the least) Empire collapses, because guess what, we got sucked into the same anti-american economics.
Only Glass-Steagall and have it actually be enforced ('33 style) will save us. Until we get a president that does that because they understand it, we're truly fucked.
What important is per capita REAL GDP not over-all debt-based lying. Regardless, who really gives a shit?
No American president will ever announce that the "Age of America" is over, regardless of the reality.
Totally agreed.
Once your head is stuck in the toilet you have to eat shit, not because you like to eat shit , because you cannot take you head out of the toilet.
The Age of America is about to launch again - once we get rid of Obama and put someone with a real entrepreneurial game plan in place.
But, that's unlikely. We seem doomed to put dipshits in office.
the republicans will purposefully lose the next election, while consolidating positions at smaller levels, knowing full well the federal will falter. I like to think it might look a little like man in the high castle by philip k dick, but with the controlling nations superimposed by current world forces.
the charade of unity will be maintained until direct ownership and import/export rights of the varying territories is secured by the new lenders. the only hope for "america" would be any local government which had the foresight to hedge against a dollar collapse in real terms, like building a sustainable infrastructure..
just my thoughts, no backing in reality.
Germany will be the next super power...duh.
Ya know folks, the "US as the only superpower" thing never was more than a blip.
Even in Ayn Rand's wet dreams, the long term growth rate of the US economy has never beat 3% for a decade. Meanwhile, economies coming from behind can do two or three times that until their per capita income gets within spitting distance of ours. Since China and India have three to four times as many people, they are pretty much guarnateed to catch us as long as they don't mess up worse, for a long time.
And don't forget Europe. Social Democrats (calling them socialists shows your ignorance) or not, there are a lot of them. The GDP of the Eurozone as a whole is bigger than that of the US. Any time they adopt a fiscal as well as monetary union, the US is instantly number two, and again Ayn Rand's wet dreams can't fix it.
In my books America was over on september 20, 2001 when Bush said "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." period.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-23kmhc3P8U
or even August 15, 1971
over indeed
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com
They are both in downtown Washington DC; the Fed on 20th Street, the IMF on 19th Street But... the distance between these two headquarters can be misleading; they really are the same force. And since this city on the banks of the Potomac is the capital of the most successful political system in history, it doesn’t make sense to house the headquarters of private individuals setting the date for America’s downfall.
This cancer initiated by private bankers now with their hands on the levers of the American government intends a leap frog to the levers of world power. Isn’t it time that these enemies of freedom and worshippers of wealth and power at the expense of the American people be asked to leave? No, forced to leave and take their subversive web of tyranny away from our shores.
Is not the current revelation by the IMF’s professional fraternity of power elites proclaiming the demise of America as the world’s city on a hill the statement of a foreign power and, therefore, an opponent of the United States? And is the IMF not only housed in our nation’s capital without identification as a foreign embassy but is not its fingers (the same hand as the Federal Reserve’s) the fingers on our currency and, therefore, the controlling fingers on our laws and on our political “representatives”? Is it not using America's money as a weapon against her?
If the President of the United States does not now identify this organization as subversive and ask for its removal then he, as we all know, works for them and not for us.
1) Let Bush waste nation's economy on failed war in middle east
2) Let Obama waste nation's future on bailout for banksters
3) Let Trump literally turn American economy into a casino
The terriorists have won!
That sounds a bit like Alice in Wonderland: how can we turn the American economy into a casino if we already are a casino? ;-)
It's already a gulag casino economy.
The IMF is a front for the true underlying current of wealth transfer-- it's a bullshit system setup on a zerosum game-- the side that gains however never changes it just moves. In the end, the IMF will crumble along with all the other centrally planning vehicles in a blaze of revolutionary glory.
Yes.
Americans have lost their faith in words that originate in Washington DC or in the MSM. Their lives and monetary system are in the hands of an international power that is the source of the lawlessness now consuming their livelihoods.
The American middle class no longer wishes to support a Washington-based international power elite, and its pawns, by paying exorbitant taxes, levies, duties and inflation for the bribery and corruption of Congress and the impoverishment of the treasury. With a Congress and court system effectively bought and paid for by the lobbyists of the money changers, no effective justice can be brought to bear against these outsiders for their crimes.
In short, the land of opportunity is now governed by financial bandits who demand tribute even in excess of the Biblical tenth for their dehumanizing global agenda.
Their power is founded, not on human virtues, but on self-serving human vices. Before America crumbles from within and all the effort and good our forefathers built up is destroyed, we have to act…
Bring on the blaze of revolutionary glory!
One variable of this debate that is left out is what I call the 1 factor with regards to future Chinese decision making is this; since 81' China has forcibly managed their one-child policy which besides upsetting the girl/boy ratio factor is about to manifest itself in a very large way..
It is now 2011, 30 years since adoption of said policy. What's my point, well here it is, imagine a country whose leaders, business, political, judicial, and whatever that are mini-me versions of our king obamalamadingdong. This because growing up as a forced only child makes ma and pa let junior do and have whatever he wants. Ever see a Chinese couple discipline their child? Neither have I, and this in the 13 times I've been to china since 92, 5 in the last 10 months. .
So here it is, think China is beligerent now? Shit, wait till these narcissistic little Napoleons' enter the Chinese halls of real power. Me, Cook Islands Bitchez.
Adious.
"hina is not aviable canidate to be the next superpower."
China doesn't WANT to be 'The Next Superpower'.
That's your western, USA, EU mindset talking. You cannot think of a world without a superpower, China will have the largest economy soon, the country with the largest economy, always, must and is a superpower, QED.
China wants the money, the prestige, the face - but they aren't stupid enough to spend trillions on a blue water navy that bankrupted the last top dog.
They have had empires before (11 over 5,000 years), but the empires only extended regionally. They were never global. India to Russia to Japan to Papua-Guinea to Singapore and that's all that they will want.
Many comments here are exactly what one would expect from citizens of a soon-to-be-dethroned superpower; denial, anger, mockery of the new guy, lashing out, threats of violence, "We'll Kick ASS again, like we used to!!!".
Ugh.
So predictable.
Please try not to kill too many people when the USSA implodes.
Third World status, here we come bitchez! Team America. . . F**K YEAH!