The End of Pax Americana & The Rise of the Rest

Fareed Zakaria has written a fascinating new article about "a seismic shift in power and attitudes" for Newsweek called The Rise of the Rest.

Here are a few interesting tidbits - the world's:

          - tallest building is in Taipei
          - largest publicly traded company is in Beijing
          - biggest refinery is being constructed in India
          - largest passenger airplane is built in Europe
          - largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi
          - biggest movie industry is Bollywood
          - largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore
          - largest casino is in Macao
          - largest mall, is not Mall of America in Minnesota - it is not in the top 10
          - only two of the world's ten richest people are American.

"These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories."

"The share of people living on $1 a day has plummeted from 40 percent in 1981 to 18 percent in 2004 and is estimated to drop to 12 percent by 2015. Poverty is falling..."

"It is an accident of history that for the last several centuries, the richest countries in the world have all been very small in terms of population. The United States is the biggest of the bunch and has dominated the advanced industrial world. But the real giants—China, India, Brazil—have been sleeping, unable or unwilling to join the world of functioning economies. Now they are on the move..."

"America's hidden secret is that most of its engineers are immigrants. Foreign students and immigrants account for almost 50 percent of all science researchers in the country."

"Half of all Silicon Valley start-ups have one founder who is an immigrant or first generation American... If these people are allowed and encouraged to stay, then innovation will happen here. If they leave, they'll take it with them."

"U.S. universities are the finest in the world, making up 8 of the top ten and 37 of the top fifty."

"Twenty years ago, the United States had the lowest corporate taxes in the world. Today U.S. corporate taxes are the second-highest in the world."

"Only three countries in the world don't use the metric system—Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States."

"Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that by the turn of the 21st century, the United States had succeeded in its great, historical mission—globalizing the world. We don't want them to write that along the way, we forgot to globalize ourselves."

Comments

[Mike Hasley]

Interesting facts. But I wonder which nations have the most publicly traded companies, tall buildings, entertainment industries, airplanes, middle class, upper middle class, investment funds . . . etc.

Not that I'm focusing on the trivia, but how diverse are these nations we're being compared too? China is rising power, and I don't mean any disrespect, but do you think a 7.5 earthquake in LA would kill even a 1000 people today?

The US needs to be vigilant, we cannot sleep ourselves into isolationism, I agree. But, I think our depth as a nation still makes us a giant to other nations.