>>by H.D.S. Greenway The Boston Globe Wednesday, May 23, 2001
>>
>>BOSTON After being the world's No. 1 economic power during most of the
>>20th century, is America ready to fall into second place within a couple
>>of decades? At the moment it is riding high. The gap between the world's
>>No. 1 and the next tier down is probably greater than at any other time
>>in recorded history. But even superpowers wane, and American preeminence,
>>at least in economic terms, may not last another 25 years. So says the
>>Harvard- and Oxford-trained economist Shahid Javed Burki, a former World
>>Bank official and the chief executive officer of Emerging Markets
>>Partnership, a Washington consulting firm. In a recent talk to executives
>>of the American International Group, Mr. Burki predicted that by 2025
>>China will have the largest economy in the world and the United States
>>will be in second place. China, he said, has already passed Japan for the
>>No. 2 position.
It's passed Japan in terms of _per capita_ income (or some measure of the
actual benefits of the economy per capita)? I doubt it. How does he measure
this? Further, if it's done using current exchange rates, China's status
could fall drastically due to a devaluation.
>>Last year the United States, with an $8 trillion gross domestic product,
>>accounted for about 22 percent of the global total, according to Mr.
>>Burki. The European Union contributed another 20 percent. "If the present
>>trends continue over the next quarter century, we will see a fundamental
>>reordering in the position of the large economies." China's share of
>>global output will be 26 percent, while America's will remain the same,
>>around 21 or 22 percent.
China may have one of the biggest economies, but it also has the most
mouths to feed.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
