China poised to pass US as world’s leading economic power this year - FT.com
The US is on the brink of losing its status as the world’s largest economy, and is likely to slip behind China this year, sooner than widely anticipated, according to the world’s leading statistical agencies.
The US has been the global leader since overtaking the UK in 1872. Most economists previously thought China would pull ahead in 2019.
It is hardly possible to gainsay that the American Left, which completely controls the organs of government, greets this news with anything but elation. The US has been the world's largest economy since 1872. As one commenter wrote, "Well, you can't say that they haven't had a good run. Though I can't deny it'll be nice to see them knocked off their perch."
In Leftist mindset, America is the main cause (if not the only cause) of the misery of the rest of the world. The world has been literally suffering from a United States that is too rich, too militarily powerful and to capitalist for the health of the world. And this is exactly the world view of our president and all his top operatives. For the United States to be displaced from its "perch" is not merely laudatory, in their view it is positively desirable.
Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of a well-known candidate-Obama quote in 2008, plus an explanatory quote from the future first lady:
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” — Barack Obama, October 30, 2008
“We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.” — Michelle Obama, May 14, 2008.
What does that mean? Prof. Hanson explains, sector by sector. But in brief, it means this:
1. Americans must become poorer except for those who are reliably, politically connected to the regime, like this guy. "Income inequality" is the deliberate, intended policy of all Leftists in history when they have seized or merely attained power. Then they blame it on the opposition, of course, using the invented condition as a wedge issue to maintain power. Meanwhile, the regime's governing members become evermore wealthy themselves: "For the first time in history, more than half the members of the House and Senate are now millionaires."
And they use the levers of power to enrich their friends:
And they use the levers of power to enrich their friends:
[A] presidential appointee deciding that nothing will be put in writing regarding an improper giveaway of $2 billion to well connected taxpayers sounds like a cover-up.
That from Bill Henck, former high-ranking attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the IRS. The "presidential appointee" he refers to is the chief counsel himself. Of course it is a cover-up. The entire administration is a cover-up.
2. The US military must shrink and become far less powerful, especially in deployment capability and size of the standing force.
3. Government must control an ever-increasing portion of the American economy so that the country's wealth is "redistributed" as the regime sees fit (which will always be into the regime's figure's own pockets and to politically-powerful blocs who accept the largess and provide PR cover for the larceny that is really going on).
Read these, too:
1. The Intellectual Origins of America-Bashing: The utopian leanings of latter-day radicalism, by Lee Harris
2. Seeds of Intellectual Destruction, by J. R. Dunn
3. The Motivations of Political Leftists, by John J. Ray.
4. Why Liberals Don’t Care About Consequences, by David Goldman (short answer is because liberalism is about liberals, not the rest of the country).
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