Thread: Global trends and the decline of the U.S. and Europe

Firstly, I maintain and insist that I am actually a happy contented person with a generally positive outlook. I also love the U.S., a country I was born in and have lived my life in. I will say that to me, however, there is a PROFOUND distinction between my country and the government. I love my country.

Thanks to the suggestion of a friend, I got a subscription to Foreign Affairs magazine, the magazine put out by the Council on Foreign Relations. I'm fascinated by this magazine since the CFR's agenda is publicly stated as being an organization created to promote and work to bring global governance to fruition.

An essay in the current issue by Jack A. Goldstone titled "The New Population Bomb" cites some alarming (or not) statistics regarding projected shifts not only in population concentrations by 2050 but also in the projected economic changes that are argued to imminently affect the U.S., Canada, Europe by 2050.

NAFTA and any other change in U.S. production and trade that have decimated our country's real production of goods aside, the essay posits that not only will the U.S. and Europe NOT recover economically, the U.S. and Europe WILL slip to the status of a "developing nation" economically. And, conversely, the "global middle class" will grow to be found in what is now considered the "developing world". Countries cited as surpassing the U.S. and Europe in economic status (economic status enjoyed by individuals rather than simply revenue generated at the national level and kept at the government level) are Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey.

A main and undeniable reason for this imminent change relates to the age of populations. Apparently 9 out of 10 children on the planet under the age of 15 live in developing countries. By 2050, 30% of Americans, Canadians, Chinese and Europeans will be over age 60 (40% over age 60 in Japan and South Korea).

There's much more to the essay, but overall it brought a sobering and definite clarity to me. Someone my age (40) would have to have been in a sensory deprivation chamber for the past twenty years or have been lobotomized to not have noticed DRAMATIC, negative and damaging changes to our nation's ability to maintain a healthy GDP and equally healthy exports.

The clarity for me comes much like it does for those who say they "knew" something was wrong within themselves when they at some point find out they have cancer. I've read that often people hearing such news about themselves in some way feel a sense of peace or relief. They don't have to expend any additional energy wondering IF or WHAT may be wrong.

Now the blunt part here and the reason for the disclaimer at the beginning of this post:

I don't believe the U.S. will "recover" economically. I don't believe the U.S. will return to the economic health that it had during the first half of my lifetime. How could it? It can't compete with countries that manufacture products where people are eagerly paid a fraction of U.S. wages. It can't compete when the youth is dwarfed in relation to the aging population. We're cooked. And, apparently, those shaping global trend believe Europe is as well and for the same reasons. I can say with conviction that I would be thrilled if I was proven wrong in my belief. Ross Perot was right about the sucking sound. I believe it would be delusional for me to think that U.S. won't continue to slide to a state that I would have even considered unimaginable twenty years ago. If the U.S. does fall toward the bottom of the pile, and if it were still a sovereign nation centuries from now, I really think it would take that long, hundreds and hundreds of years before it would rise again in any significant way economically. Why so long? It would have to wait until the generations of the middle class of the now developing nations refused to work for a pittance and instead embraced pleasure and leisure allowing the then U.S. to work for a pittance and work its way up the ladder again.

How could this be reversed? I'm sure it would take many efforts on many fronts and only in a unified manner. Although it would be less likely than me running an ultra-marathon tomorrow, inhabitants of the U.S. abruptly and on a profound level boycotting cheaply made foreign products or largely doing without such products if they couldn't be purchased here in the short term may shake things up. The same in regard to Europe.

I'd love to hear others thoughts on this subject and any solutions to this problem.

Chris L

Much ado about nothing, imo. The only reason the developing countries that are listed are growing is because americans have been buying their products. If the US falls so far we are a developing nation we will not be buying their products and they will quit growing. I was starting to get a little concerned until they had Mexico listed as one of the countries that would overtake us, are they joking, it seems to me most of the skilled mexican people are migrating to the US instead of trying to fix their own country. Mexico's GDP is probably more reliant on the dollars mexican citizens are sending home than peso's actually made on mexican products. The only nation listed I agree with is maybe Brazil as they have been doing a wonderful job lately, like being self sufficient as far as oil goes, we could learn a lot from them,imo. The funny thing is all the nations that are growing are starting to act more like us(or like we used to be), conservative government and a free market, while we are switching to be more like them big government and socialist markets. As soon as we the people quit allowing our government to destroy our nation and economy, all will be well, until then i've gone John Galt. Regards.
-Jason

when the people realize that it is supposed to be "FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE GOVERNMENT, NOT, FROM THE GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE" when we wake up things will get better, IF we wake up.....

Originally Posted by Jasongreat

As soon as we the people quit allowing our government to destroy our nation and economy, all will be well, until then i've gone John Galt. Regards.
-Jason

I wonder how many out there are old enough to remember when this country had an economy based on manufacturing in this country ? Before the bought and paid for government gave tax incentives for entrepreneurs to go 'offshore'. In the days when a man could support a family, have a house and car and send kids to college. A brief window of time actually for a couple of decades after the second world war.

Now our 'service economy' with the both parents needing one or two jobs so that there kids can maybe flip burgers at McDonald's or work at Walmart is what the average person can aspire to. Greed killed the goose that laid the golden egg ... the American worker.

Well, I haven't read the article, but from your post I don't see any serious argument for such predictions.

As far as I can tell lowering barriers to international trade has pretty much the same effect as trading between different cities. Imagine living in say 800AD, you'll be confined to having only the stuff produced on the estate you belong to. If you want to shave you better find a sharp piece of rock or make do with the one knife you have been given to cut whatever may need cutting.
Nowadays you don't have to grow your vegetables and animals to eat, or cotton and linen to clothe yourself, you can do something else instead and trade the stuff that comes out of your specialized skills for stuff that comes out of other people's specialized skills. And it's obvious that even within the same state, some regions or cities have fared better than others.

The issue is that Americans are consistently choosing particular skills (and the corresponding income) over some others, and if one day it turns out that their skills are not as valuable anymore their standard of living will decrease correspondingly. Just how the free market is supposed to work, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

I am not sure what exactly do you mean by loving your country, that it would trouble you if somebody in say Indonesia has made a life choice that puts him in the 'global middle class' while at the same time somebody in Florida has made a life choice that puts him at the low end of the socioeconomic ladder.
One thing that is affecting you directly is that part of the income of these people gets collected by the respective governments and then is redistributed mostly within the country, so potentially you could benefit or suffer from that process. But then I suspect you don't like that feature of the government, so it seems to me that it's just the result of the nationalistic propaganda (i.e. strangers who speak the same language like me and have similar culture are somehow more important to me).

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than this, mostly due to the government's discrimination between nationalities. For example the life and the economic condition of a U.S. citizen is infinitely more valuable than those of somebody in say Africa, so US government generally doesn't care if an african person is killed the same way it cares if a U.S. citizen is. Which means that one government can use the advantage of its citizens having a dominance of a segment of the market in the short term. Perhaps something analogous to the current denying of nuclear energy to Iran by the US government.

But I still think that if you happen to lean towards the right side of the political spectrum and believe that you shouldn't worry how big of a bonus CEO X got, consistency requires that you're not overly concerned with the paycheck of somebody living in Argentina either.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

How could this be reversed?

It can't be and it doesn't really need to be.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I wonder how many out there are old enough to remember when this country had an economy based on manufacturing in this country ? .

+1
Everything right now is "made in China, Thailand, Vietnam " you name it. When I buy something and see made in USA I am actually surprised...
Main reason for the economic decline is shipping factories overseas.This can't be a nation that makes its money on the Wall street only..

Originally Posted by mainaman

Main reason for the economic decline is shipping factories overseas.This can't be a nation that makes its money on the Wall street only..

+1
I think this is one of the main reasons; not only about Wall Street of course, but the overall trend in western world to put their companies into stock marketing.
Long gone are the days when purpose or the task of factories was to manufacture items and make money selling it.
Nowadays their main task is to make money for the factory owners (share holder companies) and the less there's expenses more money they make. That's why our jobs vanish into places like China or Vietnam.

They talk about a 'jobless recovery' as if it is a mystery. During the recession caused by the Arab oil embargo in the '70s it took a few years for employment to come back to acceptable levels but there were still factories within the USA to employ people.

When you telephoned a customer service representative for a USA company you got a representative within the USA. In recent years after they shipped most of the blue collar jobs overseas they began to do the same with the white collar jobs.

Even the jobs that GWBush referred to as "jobs nobody wanted" are being done by "undocumented" (they are not illegal anymore in PC speak) workers. Jobs like that were what we used to call entry level for many young Americans thirty years ago and I was one of them. They also enabled workers to make it in recessionary times such as we have now.

It is ironic that we made wars to steal a good deal of territory from Mexico 150 years ago and in the last twenty years they have been taking it back, and than some, without firing a shot. I guess that is another thread.

I used to think about having bumper stickers printed up that would say,"Buy American, The Job You Save May Be Your Own" but the cow is so far out of the barn what is the point of closing the door now ?

one thing some of you may have missed and is one of the greatest things to add to this mass buying of products overseas is the great 'WALMART" this store is so far away from what sam walton wanted and started.. it used to be that when you walked thru the door, there we signs saying "bring it home to America" and it showed how many jobs were being created by walmart buying the products made right here in America, no longer...there are very few things in the store that is made in the U.S.A now. they want to cut corners and buy as cheap as possible and we as the consumer are as much at fault as they are..walmart actually controls a larger share of the chinese economy and has massive warehouses in that country(over 30,000,000 in one alone).
walmart has driven a lot of companies out of business by coming into the factory and telling the company how much they will pay for the product with no regard to what it actually costs to manufacture. so we as consumers have to burden a lot of the blame also..when we realize what we have done, then we can start to bring those jobs back to our shores.
just because it is cheaper does not always make the best buy.