> the US is a definitive leader in pharma, entertainment, technology, and education. The technology claim is a bit dodgy. The US runs a net trade deficit in a

> the US is a definitive leader in pharma, entertainment, technology, and education. The technology claim is a bit dodgy. The US runs a net trade deficit in all categories of scientific and industrial equipment. The US has a few pockets of highly valued intellectual property, but even this edge is slipping away. Pharma has big profits from activities in the US, because Americans have turned sedentary gorging and subsequent suicide pill popping into a subsidized national past-time. I wouldn't put this under the "strengths" category. The US is not a metaphorical man on an island. It is is a nation of wage earners. The best way to thing about the big picture situation is to simply observe that 200 years ago the average working man earned more or less the same wage anywhere in the world. Then the West shot ahead. Now this disequilibrium is being corrected, and it's fairly easy to argue that real wages in the West will fall and it won't be rising wages all 'round. There isn't sufficient iron in the earth's crust to support the car owning standard of living the whole planet now aspires to. As global wages rise, Americans will be priced out of their current standard of living.