Is the US really the leading economic power in the world or do we just think we are/?

Question

Think about it, the dollar isn't number one anymore, it's second to the Euro because it is a much beter trading currency.
We hardly make any of our own stuff anmore.
I think japan is the leader, they are taking over the world with electronics and anime.

Besides that we have the largest national debt of any country which i would think should make us last economically, sooner or later other countries will realize we never pay them back and stop giving us money possible even cutting off trade.

Is kissinger for or against the idea that America is the leading economic power?

Oh yes a=quality of living, there is a factor most Americans don't put into account.

Answer 1

Of course the US is, by any conceivable measure. If you'd bother to review countries' GDPs you'd see the US has by FAR the largest economy in the world. That alone answers your question.

Japan? That a joke? Are you lost in 1989? Japan is a great producer of certain things, but they remain a small and SHRINKING country. On the whole their economy is woefully unproductive, because their lousy food processing and retail sectors are FAR larger than their efficient automotive and electronics sectors. Oh, but you don't SEE those so you're not aware of that, right? They do not and will never have the population to be the world's economic leader. Japan's influence certainly peaked 15 years ago and will only continue to slide downhill forever more. Perhaps you're not aware that Japan has spent most of the last 15 years mired in a depression, and that their stock market is only 40% the value it reached 16 years ago, while our stock market is up 6-fold.

You people need to get over your fetish about the dollar-Euro exchange rate. Currencies fluctuate for a million obscure reasons -- they go in cycles. In the 1980s everyone was fretting about the superdollar. Now it's the weak dollar. It simply does not matter unless you are a currency trader. It certainly says nothing about the relative economic power of the US vs the Eurozone. The US is in fact much wealthier than the Eurozone, and rapidly widening that gap. Europe with its usually-stagnant economies and shrinking populations is gradually fading to 3rd world insignificance, and many speculate the Euro currency won't even survive anyway.

And we do make plenty of our own stuff -- American companies are building plants in the US for TVs and ethanol and computers, while Japanese and Korean companies are building plants here in the US to manufacture cars and semiconductors. But we outsource as much as we do because it makes us wealthier. It does not make us poorer, it makes us wealthier. Wake up to David Ricardo and 200 years of economic understanding.

Oh and the US dollars we trade for imports come right back to us in the form of foreigners investing in the US -- they understand that what we have going here is better than what they got going, and they want in on a piece of the action.

Answer 2

What does it matter to 99% of American people to be able to say that they live in the leading economic power in the World??

A much better question is... what is the standard of living and quality of life of the average citizen?

The US is probably 9th or 10th in that metric.

Norway, Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia are probably ahead.

Answer 3

I think we are part of top five, but not THE leading economic power anymore, especially with the idea of globalization. At one time, the answer would be yes, but this government is finding out that other countries no longer fear us as they did in the past and actually provoke us to act many times now.

Answer 4

Yes!

Think of it this way...Since the Euro (also the Pound and Canadian Dollar) has become stronger...where would you go to buy something? Gee, maybe the USA where my money would go further! Think about it!

I have gotten many more customers from the UK and Canada as their currencies become stronger. I'm not complaining!

§§

Answer 5

it is an quite frightening prospect... in spite of united statesa.'s long and nevertheless going stable racist history, there remains plurality of theory and cultural norms... As a female i'm frightened of cultures who devalue women as first born babies to the ingredient the place in China, women are oftentimes aborted or abandoned... AND... worse in India women are killed with the aid of ridiculous archaic superstitions... "Mercy Killings" of ladies who're not pliant and obedient with the help of their own households is basically unacceptable... I even have examine MANY solid articles and scholarly money owed with the help of community newshounds and teachers from the two worldwide places...there's no room for plurality of theory in such strongly ethnocentric and inflexible social systems who stay with the help of the myths of the stable of their human beings and the inherent "corruption" of all of us else...Bullied and compelled so-stated as households are a daunting phenomenon additionally in view that creates emotionally callous persons... stable classification systems with little room for mobility is yet another undertaking that could in uncomplicated terms reason longterm social unrest... international Peace is history with such governments... AND... Terrorism is rather much a assured byproduct of patriarchal and hierarchical societies as great powers... If the international theory that united statesa. grew to become into undesirable, it has not seen something yet...

Answer 6

all developed countries are leading economic powers.

Answer 7

Please pick up a book by Henry Kissinger, then come back. To answer your question, Henry Kissinger believes we are.