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To: Tamar1973
No, it really won't. Nothing that happens in one term, short of world war, changes such things.

The masses of Asia are still poorer than dirt. There is a new middle class industrializing its coastlines, who have about reached the standard of living Americans enjoyed about 80 years ago.

In an ordinary non-recession year, the US adds new income - wealth per unit time indefinitely - of $400-500 billion in real terms, and twice that in nominal terms (before adjusting for price changes). China adds less than $300 billion. The absolute gap is still widening - their faster percentage rate is on a much lower base. Then they get to spread that new income over 3 times as many people...

3 posted on 08/13/2009 4:09:34 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: JasonC
Err, 4.3 times as many people actually... 3/4 of the new income for 4.3 times as many people, means each person's income goes up only 18% as much there as it does here. And wealth is the integral of that income.

The only way anyone can speak of anyone in Asia catching up is by heroically projecting exponential growth at unchanged rates generations into the future, which there is no particular reason to believe. They are freeing themselves from absolute poverty. That's the most that can be said.

4 posted on 08/13/2009 4:14:01 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: JasonC

Quite right — only by 2050 would the two big nations of China and India bring the majority of their population out of poverty.


21 posted on 08/14/2009 6:30:27 AM PDT by Cronos (Ceterum censeo, Mecca et Medina delendae sunt + Jindal 2K12)
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