Will the US Continue to Retain Numero Uno

There is a lot of debate on whether the US will retain its number one position in the world. Will it continue to remain the richest (which by current statistics of its mounting debt is also in doubt), greatest (depends on what standards are we talking of) country of the world.


True, China has become the manufacturing hub of the world. India has become the IT hub of the world. But none of those countries have the intellectual capital that the US has. The Harvard, MIT, Stanford are all here. The most innovative companies leading in the technology and business forefront are based out of here.

Cutting edge scientific research and technology happen and exist here.

And so, while these companies will continue to outsource for manufacturing (China) or IT services (India), the driver is primarily cost.

The currencies across the world are pegged at the dollar giving it a high value that would not go down in some time. Hence the the highest margins for sale of products continue to be from the US. This means the best quality of product and life would continue to be available here.

Few countries in the world have the infrastructure, or made the investments to research, as the US has. China especially has mainly lived off by pirating/replicating/copying products made out of years of innovation in the US.

Few countries provide the basic facilities for continuity of human life: One dollar can get you half a gallon milk or a meal to help you survive. No person can go hungry here. Restrooms and potable water are ubiquituous. Most importantly, racism is almost non-existent. By its very nature, the country was built by immigrants and there has been respect for hard-work.

Offshoring is good for balanced development of the world. But it must be a level-playing field. With China forcibly devaluing its currency, manufacturing, not just in the US, but across the developing world, is being dealt a body blow. The premise is my belief that economy is basically driven by solid outputs created from nothing. These primarily constitute agricultural and manufacturing output. A service product only exists to support the former.

So in an ideal world, where currency is driven by market forces, the Yen should have increased a long time back. This would have raised the living standards of people in China in the long run, and also given an edge to other developing countries as suitable sources of manufacturing. One day the economic viability would catch up and give the US its due too. But this is not to be so, and China is taking up an unfair advantage.

So the US continues to lose what any country's economy is based up on: manufacturing jobs. Obama should stopped commenting about service-oriented jobs being taken up by India, as those are white-collared jobs. The base of the economy (and employment) is the blue collared jobs going out to China, and that is what needs to be addressed. Note that white-collared citizens will be more accepting of a global world and willing to travel where the best opportunity exists; the blue collared cannot afford this.



If the US has to maintains its ranking, that is what needs to be focused upon.