[quote=temeculaguy]
It may seem that we don’t make anything because of the lables you see on some products, but China has a lot more people than we do, in fact the 300 million or so residents we have isn’t anywhere near where we should be relative to our GDP.[/quote]
Actually, the data is pretty clear. Manufacturing jobs left due to outsourcing and some due to technological unemployment(automation). *Some* were replaced with service sector and FIRE economy jobs coupled with a tripling in per-capita household debt(to further supplement consumer spending and hence service sector jobs – the debt overload has been gangbusters for the FIRE economy as well). Though, the underclass has risen tremendously. Actually, for 5 years those on federal food stamps has risen by about 350,000 per month, every month. So, it’s really accelerated over the last decade. This process of sending mfg jobs oversees and not having anything to sop them up with is still going on. You could probably make a good case that the upper .1% in the US interests are more aligned with the average Chinese then the average American
[quote=temeculaguy]
The United States is 1/4 of the world economy we have about 300 million people in a world of nearly 7 billion. Does that sound like last place to you? We are first by a mile, our per capita gdp is ahead of all the big countries
[/quote]
GDP has become more and more decoupled from social health. Unless you count the epidemic of mentally and physically sick people to bolster the healthcare industry and thus GDP as good, as just one example.
[quote=temeculaguy]
China and India combine for 37% of the world population and about 9% of the world economy. The US accounts for 25% of the world economy with about 4% of the population. We can argue gnp,gdp,exports,labor, blah blah blah. But it comes down to the fact that we are still way out in front and if you want to be honest with yourself, we have all that we need, even now, in our darkest days, we have too much food.
[/quote]
Not sure what way out in front means. But, yes, on a resource per-capita basis we blow the world away. Though, I’m not sure if that is a good metric of success. Actually, it is a physical impossibility of ChinIndia reaching our per-capita levels without another planet or collapsing the west’s resource use. So, it should be interesting to see where this goes.
[quote=temeculaguy]
Sure we end up with shorter lifespans, more heart attacks, high divorce and substance abuse rates. Those are the side effects of who we are[/quote]
Taking the current mental and physical illness epidemic trajectories coupled with the growing underclass and extrapolating them out probably is not “who we want to be”. Just saying.
[quote=temeculaguy]
We will have bad years, we may lose some ground and some industries, but we keep coming up with new ones.
[/quote]
One of the most recent “boom” industries, over the past decade, was security-industrial complex. Pretty much policing the population, in every way imaginable. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
[quote=temeculaguy]
Please, an American on welfare lives better than 95% of the planet. [/quote]
Grinding abject poverty of sub-saharan Africans that live on a buck a day, they are not. Though, they are probably better off then 40-50% of the planet not 95%. Then it is still relative in many ways.
