[valo403]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

WRT a few comments here, and the article... overstated, probably. The biggest thing is the social infrastructure for a world power. China has a lot of things to give it promise, India has a lot of things to give it promise, but the social infrastructure and ability to go about doing business and develop goes a long ways. If anything, the economics of these days really seems to be more international.

Education? Poor. Canada's was far better from the very brief exposure I can see. (I don't work in a education field or anything) The comment about top 16/20 schools.... whatever. I came from the University of Alberta, I work with a lot of people who came from UCLA, UC Berkeley and Stanford... those 3 schools certainly are 3 very good schools with good teachers, but the students coming out of that school didn't seem that much better (if even) then a lot of my people in my graduating class. I think Canada has very good universities, and aren't far back in terms of quality compared to American top schools (just less connections). As for internationals, et al goes.... I don't know how it compares with history, but there are a lot of international students, and UCLA/Berkeley are definitely dominated (80%?) by Asians (whether or not they are international students, I don't know)... Stanford, at least in Engineering classes, is around half at the graduate level (again, not sure who is international)... undergrad seems to be more dominated by Caucasians.

Economics... pretty crappy. A country led by the finance industry is pretty scary. For a world power, the USA sure doesn't create a lot of value.

Working class... I live in a area that seems to be somewhat dominated by either a upper class, or lower class, with a very small middle class, so my views might not be a good representation, but the small and dying middle class is pretty scary.

China/India not being as "cheap labour" ... true and definitely to consider, the trend of the USA losing ground and C/I gaining ground might not be fair as C/I will start leveling off. At the same time, though, you are seeing more talent coming out of there.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but as the worlds largest consumer the US is responsible for a great deal of value globally. If you're talking about tangible production it's more a matter of how far up your willing to go. Sure American factories aren't churning out a lot, but American companies sure are.

A lot of people seem to gloss over the fact that a continued decline in the US has very serious consequences for many of the nations that are supposedly going to take over the top spot. It's an over simplification, but if Americans stop buying things the Chinese stop making things.