China has just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy

[Luxman]

Like all previous empires, when corruption driven by greed controls most of America's government and economy, these are the signs of decline and inevitable economic, political and social failure.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2015/01/china-worlds-largest-economy

 

[sean miguel]

I for one welcome our future Chinese overlords.

Some of the best action sequences in film originate from there. And forget General Tso's Chicken, I want the authentic stuff.

And they wouldn't have to copy from us anymore; we'd be their technological subsidiary by default.

 

[xfire]

I didn't see any actual numbers in the VF article, the most recent figures I've seen still has the USA ahead of China, but let's give VF the benefit of the doubt and assume China actually does have a larger economy, my question is this, what took so long and how long will they be able to sustain it? They're working with over a billion more people than we are, so really the fact that they're just now becoming the largest economy speaks volume to their ineptitude.

Population of China- 1,355,692,576
Population of USA- 319,404,381

GDP of China- $13.39 trillion
GDP of USA- $16.768 trillion

 

[Mayhem]

The OP mentions greed and corruption of the US. Seems not to notice that greed and corruption are how the Chinese got to where they are today.

The level of pollution in the urban areas of China, most notably Beijing, have reached science fiction levels.

I watched a Youtube vid of a Double Trap match in Beijing. In the video you really couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. But the competitors were all complaining that their eyes were stinging because of the pollution.

The Chinese can control how many kids you can have but not how many cars are on the road.

There has been one documentary after another about the slave labor that permeates Chinese industry and infrastructure.

What price victory?

 

[Will E Worm]

Slave labor, human rights violations and killing people indiscriminately will do that for an economy.

The people in China are worse off than peasants.

 

[sean miguel]

Slave labor, human rights violations and killing people indiscriminately will do that for an economy.

The people in China are worse off than peasants.

Then explain the former Soviet Union.

 

[Will E Worm]

Then explain the former Soviet Union.

They are terrible.

 

[Luxman]

The OP mentions greed and corruption of the US. Seems not to notice that greed and corruption are how the Chinese got to where they are today.

I was referring to in general terms why America is declining. I agree that China is more corrupt in most ways than America.
The founding fathers warned many times not to let banks take control of the economy, but slowly over the last century that's exactly what they did, and the result is a very corrupt government and economy.
America could have had the number one economy for many more centuries, if politicians had done their jobs and protected the government and economy from corruption.
As always it's all because of greed, the destroyer of empires.

 

[xfire]

America could have had the number one economy for many more centuries, if politicians had done their jobs and protected the government and economy from corruption.

Well spoken.

 

[Johan]

I was referring to in general terms why America is declining.

America is not declining (at least, not on the economical level). But Countries like China or India are growing faster than the US. What is happening there today is what happened in Europe and the US during the XIXth and the early XXth century. With such high population, it was obvious that, when these countries would have entered the market economy. Also yo have to keep in mind that these countries have labor legislation comparable to what Europe and the US had in the XIXth century

The founding fathers warned many times not to let banks take control of the economy, but slowly over the last century that's exactly what they did, and the result is a very corrupt government and economy.
America could have had the number one economy for many more centuries, if politicians had done their jobs and protected the government and economy from corruption.

And if China's governments had done the same, China would, once more, be ahead of the US