That was meant tongue-in-cheek, I hope?

China is a country of what, 1 billion people, I believe? Yet "only" about 100 million of them actually work - less than 10% of China's population. Most of that 100 million workers are making approximately $100 dollars a month. It is still a mostly agricultural country, though farmers are leaving in droves. The cities to which the farmers are migrating -- already stressed by over-population, no health services, and poor infrastructure -- will start crumbling unless some action is taken. The great majority of their population is illiterate; they have very little intelectual property. The patent and copyright laws are basically non-existent. And we have not even mentioned their political system. (No communist country has EVER been successful.) I can go on...

There is NO doubt that China has some incredible potential. What people fail to mention is that China also has immense problems. Will China some day eclipse the US as the World's superpower? Probably. But not in our lifetimes and probably not in our kids' lifetimes...

Juan

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Whenever I text "Barack," my phone suggests the word "Capable." I guess my my phone IS pretty smart.

There will be a second revolution ...IMO....they are trying to surpress the information but the underground movement grows.

Juan, yes it was meant more as a focus again on what the world is doing outside of the US. The US seems to tie its own hands in trade and around the world. More so focusing on the US Free Trade agreement with China.

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An unwavering defender of those I see worth protecting.

"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Yeah, well... they're not playing fairly right now...

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Whenever I text "Barack," my phone suggests the word "Capable." I guess my my phone IS pretty smart.

Guess who is currently the second largest creditor of the US ($600 billion)and is predicted to be the largest by the end of the year (>$800 billion). Whatever social, political and environmental problems they may have they none the less have great econmic power. Imagine what would happen if they decided to stop funding the US spending spree by not buying up the US dept.

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Wake up every day that would be a start.

The world is financing our deficit spending....since we make nothing and have a service related economy it is going to be interesting to see how the imbalance is corrected over the short term.

Read an interesting article in the Economist a few months back. In our lifetimes...wars will be fought over natural resourses, new alliances will be formed, and borders redrawn over things like water rights....timber...and of course...energy.

Sometimes...ingnorance is bliss....

I highly doubt that China will 'eclipse' the US in the near future. One must remember that GDP isn't the end all of economic status. There is much more to it like Juan pointed out. However, the ever present trend that is growing is that as more developing economies such as China, India, etc enter the global market, the gap between the US and the rest of world is decreasing. It is merely a reallocation of resources. The less the US govt tries to fight this, the easier the transition will be.

Yup! That is a concern. The flip side of that coin is that they are investing in dollars because they know (or at least feel strongly) that they'll get their money back and then some. Let's face it, if not China, somebody else would be buying our bonds. Congress just passed an ammendment to balance the budget; hopefully, they'll actually honor it.

Juan

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Whenever I text "Barack," my phone suggests the word "Capable." I guess my my phone IS pretty smart.

btw, what do you all think of Bernanke?

I think his basic policy that uses inlfation targets is a good idea. It has worked in other parts of the world. I like it mainly because, the Fed will not nearly be as active in influencing the market as it has over the last few decades. We should see a decrease in market volatility if he follows through on this.