Mq: I am in general agreement with the essence of your post. That life is good and getting better. For a significant and growing percentage of the world's population.
But, your comments are qualitative, not quantitative, and focused on the present. A quantitative analysis of the performance of the US economy shows that it performs as a function of the sum total of the spending of the US population. The US population can be broken down into 5 year (or smaller) age groups, with spending increasing by age 'til about age 50 and then declining thereafter. A good approximation of the size of the US economy is a simple integral of the area under the population x per capita spending curve. Not even mathematics, just arithmetic. I will supply references for source data if you are so inclined, so you can do a little Exceling and confirm this for yourself.
The unprecedented surge in US economic growth and prosperity since 1980 was driven by the front side of the boomer demographic wave. From 2010-2025 we get the back side of the wave. The decline in US aggregate demand will be relentless. Growth in China or anywhere else in the world will not, can not, take up the slack, 'cause we are talking about declining US purchases by US consumers of houses, cars, appliances, furnishings and myriad stuff. In fact, the decline in US domestic demand will ripple out across the globe and destroy the economies of US trading partners. This might be the most destructive economic event in all of modern human history. We're talking 15 years of a stagnant or contracting US economy. Japan X 10. Inescapable. Ineluctable. Economic Armageddon.
Of course, in the long term, by about 2100, or 2050 if we're lucky, this event will be seen as just one more blip on the inexorable upward march of human progress. So you and I shall both be right. The difference is, you'll be dead by the time you are right. :) |
