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nanarchy said:
MDMAlliance said:
You're awfully condescending for someone who didn't fully read what I said.  I didn't even insist on the specific year of "2033" to begin with, I already said.  I also already said that the guy you were responding to, I did not think he was accurately projecting what the actual numbers are.  You're responding to me like as if I was continuing off of his argument.  My response to you was simply that you were misleading by saying that his numbers were way off.

Not only this, but you're still keeping China pretty high, given China is already at 7.7%.  Given the political climate surrounding China, there's a chance it could drop off more than that.  The relative decline of China does not have to mean that the US will suffer greatly for it.  China is a major trading partner for the US, and China's economy crashing would have repercussions for the US for sure.  However, it doesn't require China's economy to "crash" for the estimates you give to be off, and the US's economy will not decline proportionally to China's.  What exactly would happen is unknown, but you're overestimating China's influence on the US, or you're overestimating the likelihood China will sustain its growth rate.  

Like I've been trying to assert this entire time, I'm not saying what will happen one way or another.  I'm just saying this issue has a LOT of factors involved, and you're oversimplifying it.  You're trying to look at it from a statistics point of view, and even then the data doesn't fully support you.  Also, the "massive economic shifts" could already have a place in China if you've been paying attention to the whole reason China's GDP has been so high.

Though, my honest feelings are that even if China's GDP surpasses the United States, that means a lot less than what people think.  It wont mean China is "more powerful" than the US.  And I personally think it's not that likely that China's economy will keep up unless they solve the issues looming their country right now, since they can easily fester into something that can quickly crash their economy.  I know China's aware of it (with their investment in infrastructure in Africa), but there's a lot of other things involved here.  The International System is not nearly as predictable as you would imagine.  By that same token, China could resurge its economy and surpass the US GDP even faster than some estimates say, but I don't see the basis for making that claim.  Looking at the evidence we have, it's more likely China would either at most, stay at a relatively same level or decline.  I wont make any claims to a certain year like you or Atma, but you need to look at this subject more objectively and with more perspective, and be less condescending about the topic when no one really knows how this will turn out (people thought the same stuff about Japan in the 80's).

perhaps we should just agree to disagree. I was not implying you believed the 2033 number, but your assertion that a mere 1% was insignificant rather than massive was blatantly incorrect comment. I also personally don't believe the US can climb out of its hole in the short term, they have politically isolated themselves from countries like Russia and China which will be a dead weight on the economy. China has a very large investment base outside of the borders, this is what tends to hurt other countries significantly in a decline, e.g. one of the huge chinese based investments is in US realestate. Personally I see China declining gradually but not fast enough to prevent it flying past the US GDP.


I'm not saying 1% GDP is insignificant, but that 1% doesn't constitute "major" in the relative sense that is used in.  1% can make a big difference, but at the same time 1% isn't going to make or break anything.

As for the politics, it's always convoluted.  What happens isn't always going to make sense at the time it happens (or before).