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A Change in World Powers?

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M

MurdocRocks

Jun 18, 2005
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Torrance, CA
#1
Is there going to be a shift in world powers soon?

With all this out sourcing and what not, it seems like all of the U.S.'s money is just leaving. I think I heard that Walmart alone gives $80 billion of the U.S's to China yearly. Nearly everything of ours is manufactured somewhere else, so where do we get our income?

Many students today lack the discipline and focus to major in technical fields. So we're going to end up being a second-rate country to the likes of China and India. China will graduate about 600,000 engineers this year. The U.S. will graduate about 59,000. You don't have to be an engineer to see where this is going.
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-Munjibunga

So, are we also losing our education, (at least technology-wise)?
 
#4
Possible threats to US dominance in world affairs are greatly exaggerated by the mass media. These include things like outsourcing, China, and terrorism (although you could say that you don't hear too much about nuclear proliferation these days). If there is something that could undermine American strength, it's a kind of social stagnation. The importance of Enlightenment-era philosophical thought in American culture seems to have waned, or at least its influence on politics. This might be indicative of a decrease in social capital, or its effective power, which means US society's coherent ability to govern itself is fading. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that US dominance will diminish. If you ask me, the same phenomena at work here are also at work around the world, and also carry a kind of unintelligent inertia that will continue the legacy of US cultural and economic dominance for the forseeable future.

BTW, this topic is politics by definition, but I don't care because I'm a rebel who flaunts the rules like a two-bit floozy!
 
#5
To be successful - any economy needs growth!

The US is stagnating, while India and China are rocketing skywards - if anything, the media are "under-reporting" this - as it would probably be too scary!! :eek:

In Britain we've already dealt with this and shed virtually all our manufacturing and shifted to a service and banking economy- it's only the stock exchange which keeps us afloat.

Without continuous wars, I think the US economy would already have crashed - but it's going to very soon - virtually inevitable!! :hmm:
 
#7
True the manufacturing base is down and I don't approve, but these Wars are not big enough to keep the economy going. Remember when Japan owned everything over here and people were in a snit. Things change and I wouldn't count the US out yet.
 
#8
OK so:
China will graduate about 600,000 engineers this year. The U.S. will graduate about 59,000.
Let's not forget the population of China is (according to the CIA) 1,306,313,812 the population of the US is 295,734,134
600,000 is 0.04% of the chinese population
59,000 is 0.02% of the US population...but which country currently has a larger proportion of engineers? I expect the US...though obviously I really don't know.
 
#9
If China and Saudi Arabia own such a large segment of America's debt, they will have a vested interest in our financial security. Avoid jobs that can be or soon will be outsourced (computers, architecture/engineering, etc.) and you'll probably be ok.
 
#10
Ericman197 said:
If China and Saudi Arabia own such a large segment of America's debt, they will have a vested interest in our financial security. Avoid jobs that can be or soon will be outsourced (computers, architecture/engineering, etc.) and you'll probably be ok.
Click to expand...

Good point. In terms of future growth, China and India will outstrip the USA. Foreign investment in China is roughly $1.0 billion per week. They are buidling over 60 new airports in China for commercial traffic. Huge growth in all sectors.
10% or their population is considered extremely weathly by North American standards. That's 130 million people, roughly 1/3 the population of the USA.

There needs to be a balance of power in the world. I think China will certainly be in the running.
 
#11
World powers always shift--waning, waxing, rising to prominence, disappearing forever, etc. Remember that only 16 years ago there was this huge industrial and military juggernaut called the Soviet Union. It fell because, amongst other things, its citizens discovered that they had been lied to, and that life was better in places outside the USSR, via Dallas and blue jeans.

No one could have predicted the exact reasons behind the failure of various governments. The US is still the major world player, and major world players don't disappear overnight--our decline will take a while, most likely, and isn't inevitable, just probable the way things are going.


Also, if you're worried about the number of US engineers, come over here and look at who's working in Silicon Valley. If China is graduating 600,000 engineers, I'll bet a dime to a dollar that next year over half of them move here to work.
 
#12
jabberwock777 said:
Remember that only 16 years ago there was this huge industrial and military juggernaut called the Soviet Union.


The US is still the major world player, and major world players don't disappear overnight--.
Click to expand...

The soviet union disappeared "overnight" if you're talking in global economic timescales...;)

Anyway - nobody is saying it will happen tomorrow - just that it's inevitable!!
 
#14
jabberwock777 said:
Remember that only 16 years ago there was this huge industrial and military juggernaut called the Soviet Union. It fell because, amongst other things, its citizens discovered that they had been lied to, and that life was better in places outside the USSR, via Dallas and blue jeans.
Click to expand...

Actually, outside of vodka and weapons, the USSR had nothing of value to export.
 
#15
Woodchuck said:
Actually, outside of vodka and weapons, the USSR had nothing of value to export.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that didn't help, either. And I hear that other countries made much better vodka at the time, to boot :)
 
#16
Bruce Lindfield said:
Without continuous wars, I think the US economy would already have crashed
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If you subscribe to the whole theory where the military-industrial complex provides a steady artificial source of jobs and wealth, thereby ensuring stability in the economy and ensuring a constant consumer middle class for businesses to sell to, prompting economic growth and all that – yeah I see where you’re coming from, but word is that under Clinton defense spending was getting reduced, and the military-industrial complex was getting supplanted by a techno-industrial-science funding, something that would provide the same indirect benefit that a military-industrial complex would, but also contribute directly to society in terms of education, direct technological development, etc. This could be supported by the fact that under the Clinton administration, the economy was booming.

All this implies that the current mess (if you can call a mere economic slow-down a “mess”) is GWB’s fault, or the people who voted for him, or the Supreme Court that installed him, or etc.

Komakino said:
OK so:
China will graduate about 600,000 engineers this year. The U.S. will graduate about 59,000.
Let's not forget the population of China is (according to the CIA) 1,306,313,812 the population of the US is 295,734,134
600,000 is 0.04% of the chinese population
59,000 is 0.02% of the US population...but which country currently has a larger proportion of engineers? I expect the US...though obviously I really don't know.
Click to expand...
Economically speaking, the relevance of this is related to what the engineers are doing, who they’re working for, how much they’re getting paid, and what they’re spending their money on.

Bruce Lindfield said:
The soviet union disappeared "overnight" if you're talking in global economic timescales...;)
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t say that. The Soviet Union began suffering from significant stagnation after Khruschev was ousted, which continued and contributed to its eventual demise.
 
#18
This may sound weird but we need to replace our fading industrial economy with an agricultural economy at least for international trade. We have a growing service economy now when coupled with agriculture would be enough to maintain our standard of living. Every one has to eat, there are few places in the world that can match our farmland. The price of food is going to rise sharply in the next twenty years as China and others get larger and develops more of their farm land for living and industrial use. If it weren't for immigration we would have a steady or even declining population. Farming is not the back breaking work it used to be. We over produce as it is, we just need to manage our output in such a way as to rotate field usage and not flood the market.
 
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