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An aging US population, massive growing debt, shrinking dollar and shrinking manufacturing says America's decline is now.
by chailatte 16y ago
An aging US population, massive growing debt, shrinking dollar and shrinking manufacturing says America's decline is now.
- j_baker 16y agoChina's population is aging much faster than ours due to their one child policy. Our debt isn't really a whole lot worse than it was after World War II, and that preceded pretty good growth for us. Lastly, the effect of the value of the dollar going down and manufacturing jobs going elsewhere is of debatable importance.
- positr0n 16y agoYes but after World War II we had thousands of working age men return home to start careers and family. Also the pre-WWII centers of finance, industry, and everything important had been bombed to smithereens, so a lot of that moved to America. None of these affects are applicable today.
- j_baker 16y agoYou're right. All of those things are already here. We're even better off than we were then.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoShrinking manufacturing? Perhaps due to the recession, but otherwise not so much. Peak output for US manufacturing was in 2006, current American manufacturing output is about 40% above what it was in the mid-90s. Just because there are fewer jobs due to automation doesn't mean manufacturing in America is in decline.
- Helianthus16 16y agoYeah, and an increasingly male population, a huge disparity in actual GDP, and the general maturity level of the country rated somewhere around "early teenager" says that China isn't going to take over anytime soon. China still _acts_ like a 19th or 20th century power. It's still pre-occupied with its "place" on the world stage, so sensitive to insult because it wants so hard to be important. Sure, that could grow into something, but it ain't there now.