Quote:
Originally Posted by lfc4life
per capita the US has been surpassed a while ago though https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat.../2004rank.html
The USA will still remain a superpower but the strength of the dollar against the euro is the big worry over the next 20 years, if it continues to fall the developments in world markets will be interesting |
If you drop the "island" states (by which I mean both literal and figurative) and the oil states, we're still #1, although the fall of the dollar will likely shake that up more if it continues or even just remains where it is. The values on that list are all done with PPP calculations, though, instead of market exchange rates, so the impact of a weak dollar will be lesser and take time to be represented in lists like that one.
The biggest issue for the U.S. won't be per-capital GDP, though, it will be stagnation of working-class wages. It doesn't much matter if the average share of GDP is $46k, if that share is split in such a way that is sharply disadvantageous to lower class earnings. With economic distribution in the U.S. getting stretched, people will simply decide that if they have to work hard and still be poor, they might as well stay in their own country.