From a Newsweek International article at msnbc.com:
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, reflects on the growing competence and cost advantage of countries like China and even Mexico and says, “It’s unclear how many manufacturers will choose to keep their businesses in the United States.” Intel’s Andy Grove is more blunt. “America … [is going] down the tubes,” he says, “and the worst part is nobody knows it. They’re all in denial, patting themselves on the back, as the Titanic heads for the iceberg full speed ahead.”
[...]
Americans do not really know how fast the rest of the world is catching up. We don’t quite believe that most of the industrialized world – and a good part of the nonindustrialized world as well – has better cell-phone systems than we do. We would be horrified to learn that many have better and cheaper broadband – even France. We are told by our politicians that we have the best health-care system in the world, despite strong evidence to the contrary. We ignore the fact that a third of our public schools are totally dysfunctional because it doesn’t affect our children. We boast that our capital markets are the world’s finest even though of the 25 largest stock offerings (IPOs) made last year, only one was held in America. It is not an exaggeration to say that over the past five years, because of bad American policies, London is replacing New York as the world’s financial capital.
Well, folks in American can be reassured that they at least have better broadband service than Germans. Broadband is not available where I live, nor was it available in Rostock. I NEED HIGH SPEED INTERNET! AAARRGHH!!!
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What always shocks me is that when I have talked about the inevitable demise of the US as the world’s foremost superpower, I have been called unpatriotic (and have been told that if I did not like America then leave…) The thing is, no great empire lasts forever–think of Rome, think of France, England, Germany–inevitably, the forces that created that empire destroy it, and someone else picks it up. And this time around it is going to be China, without a doubt (and for saying that I have been called a Commie lover…)
Americans really keep their heads in the sand a lot. Blind patriotism without objective criticism is a very dangerous thing. Healthcare is not the best, education is not the best (although it is pretty good at tertiary level, but then, it is more difficult for the lower classes to avail of those opportunities), there is no safety net for the poor. The US is going to self implode, IMO…
It’s not just China, there’s India and the EU as well. China will be the world’s largest economy, but I’m not sure there will be a single superpower in the future.
It’s strange that Americans often think of the US as the best country in the world when it has by far the highest percentage of people living in poverty of all industrialized nations.
The US is #24 in the world in per capita murder rates (we’re up there with African and South American countries and former Soviet republics – http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita). And despite evidence that it is not a deterrent, the US is still using the death penalty.
Talk about burying heads in the sand, the scientific community is nearly unanimous about global climate change, even China has tougher emissions standards, but many Americans don’t want to be bothered.
The Kansas City Public School district had it’s accreditation revoked by the state because they were so bad. So graduating from a KCMO school was equivalent to getting your GED.
The Chinese have better fighters than we have, partly because our Air Force is flying the same planes they were flying thirty years ago. Not the same type of planes, but literally, the same planes.
There is a world politics upheaval coming and most American’s are going to be caught completely unawares.