Facisnating. I wonder what it would be like back in 1945 when the US was 50% of the worlds GDP.

My country (UK) is in really bad debt like the US. This documentary explains it quite well (though not REALLY well).

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-trillion-pound-horror-story

Was just reading some of the comments on The Economist regarding comparing individual states to GDP and population of individual states. They should do one on debt, that would be quite interesting. One post gave a few examples:-

California = Japan

Texas = Britain

New York = France

Also poverty rate per state/country would be interesting.

Everyone check this out:-

http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/

Japan is by far the country with the most national debt vs GDP. I was surprised at how much debt India was in.

That's Normal GDP you are talking about, when counting a country's normal GDP, we always convert the country's GDP into US dollar, and some countries' currency are severely under valued. Like the Chinese RMB is about 50% under valued against US Dollar according to US politicans and economists.

For Normal GDP, The growth rate of China is above 10% this year, and if USA don't want to get caught up before 2020, they need to grow 2.5% per year in the next decade...  not gonna happen imo.

So enjoy your last decade of world domination USA, we will have a much more balanced world lead by the peaceful Chinese Dragon very soon.

I think some of us are are massively exaggerating the rise of China (and India). China and India have way more internal issues than the US. Their poverty rate is colossal and daunting. There are major violent civil unrest in parts of both countries. With India it's easy to see because it's an open society but China is harder to assess due to it's more authoritarian system.  Also a lot of it's exports are of Western and East Asian origin. So for example Microsoft or Sony set up shop in China, use the first class infrastructure and third world wages  to assemble the products and have it shipped out to overseas markets. Sure it's labelled made it China but it's actually lining the pockets of first world share holders and the Chinese elite. The people who are really losing out are workers the world over. Wages in the developed world have been stagnating relative to growth for decades as well as losing jobs to the developing world while third world sweat shops exploit workers horrendously with low wages, terrible working conditions and non existent workers rights . The real benefactors are the multi national corporations and their shareholders.

Also we have seen it before when supposedly another country would overtake the US economy. Japan for one. Germany perhaps.  Heck even the USSR at one time. Look how they all they turned out.

Yes, true, I even made that comment earlier in the thread. However, China's currency won't stay valued that low for long, China has some severe inflation woes, and letting go of currency controls will be a route that they have to take. So, yes, this will mean that in the Normal measure, China will make huge gains on the USA as the conversion rate favours China.... but the matter of the fact is, the rate of growth will drop, and so it will still take longer for China to catch.

Also, PPP measure favours emerging markets as commodity prices are relatively cheap, as these countries develop, the gap between the Normal and PPP measure shrinks

Haha, yes, the world of the 80s and early 90s was one of the "rise of Japan". Of course, the whole thing was flawed because of severe demographic issues, as well as the fact that Japan is far smaller in terms of land/resources and population to the USA - something where China clearly has the upper-hand.

However, China's growth is based on some severely flawed economic principles, and the Government are actually creating a weak demographic structure (1 child policy = rising population age).

What you've said is right, though, it's very, very hard to predict what will happen... even if it looks blatantly obvious (ie. rise of China).

Except China is very different this time, it's growth has been driven mainly by internal demand now according to the 2010's figure. They can easily sell those junks they made in their own country instead of walmart... China has 1.3 billion population, so potentially the Chinese market could be 4 times bigger than USA's. and 13 times of Japan's.

I remember back in the 90's many predicted China would collapse during the first decade in 21st century, even the most optimistic prediction was like the GDP of China's would match Japan's in 2020, and USA's in 2050... Now look what has happened. Back in 8 years, China only ranked 7th in Normal GDP, (USA, JP, Germany, UK, France, Italy, China) now the Chinese GDP is 2.5 times of UKs almost twice of Germany's (remeber China only matched Germany's GDP 3 years ago?). All of these happened within one decade.

Yes, the future is hard to predict, but the rise of China is so obvious and unstoppable, instead of fighting it, I suggest we embracing it...

The inflation rate is actually not that bad in China compare to other emerging markets, CPI in China in 2010 was less than 4% with the GDP grow 10.3%. India's GDP growth about 8.5% and a CPI about 8% in 2010.  UK's CPI was 3.7% in Dec 2010.

The rate of growth will drop for China, but will sure surpass 8% in the next decade, If  another economy downturn happened in the USA in the next decade, China will sure take the lead within 10 years.

I expect China's and USA's Normal GDP will be about equal in 2020, and China willll take the lead in 2025.

Mexico in the top 10 world's economies? Why I suspect that won't reflect at all in it's population's pockets...

:(

There are a few cultural advantages some emerging countries such as India and China have. For one they don't really have a welfare state, families members are expected to look out for one another. The society is more collective than individualistic compared to the West. Also a lot of Asian families have a different sense of creative concept than in the West so for them nurturing their children to do well academically and work towards a profession of high status (like Doctor or Solicitor) takes precedent over allowing their child to develop as an individual. And saving is more valued in Eastern culture rather than the spending spree materialistic culture we have over here. However all of that could change just like it did in the West.