I don't give a hoot about our ranking, and neither should anyone else. It's not as though the world economy were a zero-sum game. Nor does China pose any threat to us in the foreseeable future -- they have a similar sized land mass, with about the same amount of oil and minerals -- and if they ever do decide to expand for Lebensraum, Siberia is a much easier target for them.

I have no problem with this -- because as Chinese individuals become wealthier, it will become harder and harder for the government to keep them unfree. At some point either the Communists will crack down again and stop the economic progress, or the progress will sweep them away.

Indeed, poor countries are the biggest threat to freedom and stability in the world. It's good that many of them are finally starting to become rich, in spite of the best efforts of Soros and the CFR to prevent that from ever happening. (Remember, they're not there yet -- China still has 5 times the population of the US, so their per-capita wealth is proportionally smaller.)

The author has taken ONE part of how such things are judged and put it out as if that decides it.
I commented on another forum that he himself points out what the rest of the world uses as a guide and that he then dismisses it as unimportant without any evidence or reason.

You will note: this is a Communist Power, using partially capitalist methods on a base of socialist efforts for decades.

It has a very short shelf-life - it cannot sustain itself. No communist or socialist system ever lasts more than 50 years without resorting to cannibalizing their neighbors (China's already done that as far as we'll let them) or resorting to capitalism (which they have already started doing), but they still collapse within 75 years.
Thousands of experiments around the world have been tried - they've all failed; hundreds in my state alone (Texas).

When you see this article on the Wall Street Journal or some other major source, then worry.

Now it's more like Baghdad Bob whining in the dark about the success of Iraq's forces against the Americans in the last war.

It's meaningless.
Glad to see China is seeing some prosperity - after all the garbage they've dealt with, the people deserve it.

No worries at all.

This kind of sounds like America's Trust by Murray McDonald.

"Our "leaders" are so lost on the focus of breaking all our legs, and getting a monopoly on crutch distribution, that they have no vision at all on growth and freedom. "

You have just written a perfect description of socialism. Bravo!

I am not really looking forward to that.

That's very true I've read that Japan was importing 90% of it`s chopsticks from China and China was imposing a surcharge due to a shortage of timber.

Then try to define the term free trade

We are basically a Chinese colony. Which in a strange way, may protect us from a Red Menace style invasion. After all, if the Chinese invaded us, they'd lose their primary market and go bankrupt.

That said, when you have taken over a significant part of another country's economy, you have effectively conquered it.

I agree that farming, mining, and manufacturing are the only ways to create wealth. Our government allowed the Chinese to manipulate their currency and therefore US manufactures are not on a level playing field. This has reduced the wealth creation of manufacturing and will result in the USA being a second rate country.

I loathe Obama as much as the next guy but this can't be dumped in his lap. This had been a long, slow decline with many contributing factors.

I love it!

The author of the article claims that “purchasing power parity” (or PPP), is the best measure of economic strength. I'm thoroughly unqualified to confirm or dispute that, but we should all be hyper-skeptical of anything coming from the IMF.

Is it pertinent that China has many times our population or does the PPP account for that - or is that irrelevant because we're concentrating on total economic power without regard to population?

Corporate taxes are not the big factor in Americas shrinking manufacturing base. The main problem is China's under valued currency. China subsidizes their manufacturing while our government over regulates us. Our government and big global business allowed China to manipulate their currency. This could have been stopped years ago but now China ownes us. I lived through this period as the owner of a mid sized manufacturing company---I know what I am talking about.

The inevitable has happened. If you don't like being #2, how you gonna feel if we're number 3,4,0r 5?

Interesting side comment, in Las Vegas BEFORE you can open ANY business, you need prior approval from the city that your business is covered by one of their categories. Meanwhile, Putin is trying to free up Russian regulations to allow businesses more freedom, and its easier to start a business in China than it is here. No wonder we are failing as a superpower.

I am not surprised at all. For our small company, we just CANT AFFORD to buy from american companies (and most of them get their stuff from China anyway). Its so easy to trade with the Chinese- they give good customer service, excellent prices, fast response to orders and questions. These are all things American companies have been very bad at, and they are paying the price. In addition, hiring american workers (as in legal ones) is a real pain and a drag on business. They feel entitled ($15/hr minimum wage for example), dont really want to work, and refuse to compete with lower paid workers (illegal aliens and other countries). If I want to stay in business, I HAVE TO BUY FROM CHINA no matter what.

why is anyone surprised. it has been 25 plus years of companies from all over the western world to include the usa, canada, europe and even japan getting product made in china. government motors (GM) has 11 or 13 factories there. but keep in mind that since the usa and europe are the biggest consumer market in the world going down hill the manufacturing that was going on in china is also going down hill. without a manufacturing base every nation will go down hill.

I am for fair trade not free trade. Our government over the years negotiated poor trade agreements but on top of that they did not enforce the agreements. China violated the agreement by manipulating their currency. A company I owned, Signicast, had to overcome a price differential of 50% due to the the yuan's undervaluation. Signicast could over come most of this differential because we were heavily automated. Many US companies could not compete and either reduced their out put or moved to China. All we ask from our government is give us a level playing field.

People wring their hands and ask were all the US jobs went. My answer is look at the label stupid.

This should not be a surprise to anyone who really understands the data. The trend is decades old (not just the last seven years....).
China is what? - 1.2 BIllion people - of course their economy, if at all healthy, should, at some point, be bigger than ours.

Among many, many regulatory reasons for moving manufacturing and other GDP creating activity out of the US is the big corporate tax
rate ("penalty") for creating/manufacturing domestically.
Recent accusations by O of this being unpatriotic is a example of how far we have to go to fix this - progress on a solution does appear beyond political will / vision. (again nothing new for decades).

Regardless, I have no fear of China's "communist power". They are not a significant military power - all their foreign policy effort is effective, low cost natural resource acquisition and domination.
My fear continues to be of our own governments restrictions and roadblocks to growth and prosperity here domestically.
Our "leaders" are so lost on the focus of breaking all our legs, and getting a monopoly on crutch distribution, that they have no vision at all on growth and freedom.

Love your optimism. I love a challenge. Let's get it done despite the obstacles.

Absolutely right.