I'm reposting a news article from MarketWatch.com because of its importance in understand America's place in the global economy, and what has happened not simply since the start of the recession, but really over a 30 year period beginning with the original "F**k Up", Ronald Reagan's "Trickle Down" economic policies...
(MarketWatch article in blue font)
"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.
And it’s a lot closer than you may think.
According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now... 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.
According to the IMF forecast, whomever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.
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.
The comparison that really matters: The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” (PPP) 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 size of 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 rising.
Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s. "
Ineptitude of both political parties over 30 years, as well as selfish greed which is as natural to businesses and corporations as breathing, have caused this to happen. More specifically, the only real differences between Republican and Democrat in political circles has been on social and hot-button issues like abortion, gay-rights, 2nd Amendment rights, etc..
Economically, there are little to no difference.
Sure the Republicans talk of balancing budgets now but their goal really is to completely gut social services and roll back the entitlements of the last 75 years. They had no problems freely spending money when in control of Congress during the early-mid 2000's. And Democrats claim they're for the working people and poor, yet abandon them at every turn so not to upset the markets, corporations and power brokers that own both parties.
And meanwhile, while every President from Reagan to Clinton to Obama was/is at heart, a pro-Wall Street, pro-corporation "Trickle down"-ite, deeply greedy US businesses decided it was far better for them to close whole factories and distribution centers and ship them to the ends of the globe to save $$ in wages, benefits and Federal taxes.
The American only had value as a 'consumer' with endless credit cards to tap out which was used by most people to make up the difference in loss of standard of living, based on increased prices and stagnant wages.
The American people have not had a leader who has genuinely fought for them in over 30 years; someone who looked at corporations and banks with healthy hatred and took them on directly, grabbing the proverbial 'bull' by the horns. Someone who fought hard for fair trade policies that help make the nation stronger rather than speed up its decline.
Instead, for 30 years our Presidents have made us feel good about ourselves with "Morning in America", sold us on a 'New World Order', 'felt our pain' while increasing it via NAFTA & WTO, sold a bill of lies to get us into a 8years + counting war in Iraq, and promised us 'Hope' & 'Change' while delivering neither.
Five presidents worked collectively to appease the ultra-rich, destroy the economic foundations, expand our National Debt to uncontrollable proportions and make us heavy indebtors to China, who will now eventually surpass the US in five years.
I end with this sobering statistic-- in 1980, the National Debt of the US was under $1 Trillion. In 31 years and five really awful presidents of both parties, it is at $14.3 Trillion and rising by $133 million A DAY.
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