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Life Talk!

3 Top Countries For the Future

andylu2

andylu2

Canada

Hey guys,

This is just a guess from what I understand, or think I understand about the world.  I'm going to pick my top 5 countries in terms of economic success for the next 10 years.   I'd love to hear your opinions. (Don't be angry if I don't pick your country"

1.  CHINA – They just became the world's second largest economy in the world.  It was in the news yesterday.  The people are hard working and want the country to get better.  The government is doing a good job, even though a lot of western media doesn't agree.  They will be the world's number 1 economy in the future.

2.  Japan – Japan has been slow to grow for a long time.  They are close to China and their relationship is getting better.  They should be good trading partners.  Many Chinese people love buying Japanese stuff and this will help Japan's economy.  I believe their relationship will keep getting better. (I think something similar will happen with Korea)

3.  Brazil – Brazil has a lot of natural resources and the world needs a lot of these.  They have had their problems in the past but I think they will figure it out soon. I think Brazil hasn't even started yet and will grow like crazy in the next 10 years.

I'd love to hear your opinions. 

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11:41 AM Aug 17 2010 |

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SantiagoC

SantiagoC

Uruguay

In 10 years?  No way anyone catches the USA in that time, so we are still #1

The European Union already has a higher GDP.

Apart of that, if it enlarges (and it will happen) to other countries such Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Russia, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, etc, it will have even a higher GDP 

05:51 PM Aug 18 2010 |

Radunagi

Radunagi

United States

Ahhh, ok ok, I'll give that to you. Smile But GDP isn't the whole story, you need to consider per-capita GDP too, and everything…  but if you just look at per capita GDP, then suddenly you have Luxembourg out in front, and that just can't be right.

 

Well, the EU is kind of a special case, so I'll just give them the honorary "biggest economy" title assuming that they continue to integrate their economy.  

06:01 PM Aug 18 2010 |

SantiagoC

SantiagoC

Uruguay

But GDP isn't the whole story, you need to consider per-capita GDP too, and everything…

That's right

 but if you just look at per capitaGDP, then suddenly you have Luxembourg out in front, and that just can't be right.

They are first, what's weird about that?

Apart of that, if you concider GDP per capita, USA is in a worse situation, because countries such Singapore, Norway, Luxembourg, Liechtestein, UAE, and Faroe Islands are in better positions.

 

06:12 PM Aug 18 2010 |

andylu2

andylu2

Canada

GDP is an over rated measure of anything in my opinion.

If you pay a divorce lawyer a lot of money, that counts towards GDP

If you sue a doctor, that counts towards GDP

If you lock up people in prison That is GDP too.

All that military spending is GDP too.

The USA is in huge debt and I don't see them improving quickly unless they change a lot of things.

I'd like to hear some opinions about this

08:04 PM Aug 18 2010 |

Gorgon

Gorgon

Romania

Agree for the China! I think there are no objections here. Other two may be countries from the EU, like Great Britain for instance (EU is not a country) and maybe Georgia, if China will reopen The Silk Road (of course, Georgia it will not become a super power, but it will experience a rapid bloom).

07:52 PM Aug 19 2010 |

Radunagi

Radunagi

United States

Imagine you loan a guy a large sum of money to start a business.  You really don't want to see the business fail, because you are counting on getting your money back, with interest.  The US debt, to the extent that it is a problem, is just as much if not more of a problem for other countries as it is for us. 

 

They are first, what's weird about that?

 

This was actually just a joke about Luxembourg.  I almost went with Liechtenstein but closer to Belgium = more funny.  If you want to get serious about it, though, the dynamics for a large country are very different than for a small one.  China has almost as many millionaires as Luxembourg has people.  And yet… 

 

If the Republicans get the house or the senate in November, Nu Pogodi, I will buy you the beverage of your choice if you ever make it down to Santa Barbara, CA.   

04:56 AM Aug 20 2010 |

Mr.Bean's wife

Myanmar

What a nice topic! I also think China can become a top country in the future.  Japan has already been a top country. But I don't know much about Brazil.  So, I am not going to make any comments on it.

 

12:36 PM Aug 20 2010 |

spider girl

Pakistan

i agree with andy that china and brazil are fast growing future economies while japan, canada and germany are mantaining their pace with some nice progress.

03:51 AM Aug 21 2010 |

Gucci Yeung

China

Thanks a lot for the nice words about my country, dear friends ;) In latest 30 years, China did work a wonder in economy. Now many economists started to count how soon China would overtake the USA. But are we really in such a good situation? Confined to my narrow knowledge, I'll just say what I think I understand. As we know, in an economy, if more labour and capital are invested, with rational allocation of resource, the economy will grow. But its speed won't be much higher than the growth rate of capital and labour input, it's just a simple expansion, a quantitative change. And, that's what we mainly did in last 30 years. Now we are still depending on labour and resource inventive industries, which is one of the most backward economic modes in the world. As a country with enough cheap labour supply, this mode can form an enormous economic bubble in a short period of time, but hard to preserve a long term development. As labour supply and resources get less, the economic growth will slow down. So, we are facing the challenge that how to maintain the growth with less labour and resources input, or rather, how to produce a higher output value with lower cost. If we can make this qualitative change, no doubt we will be one of the most competitive countries in the future.

05:05 PM Aug 21 2010 |

Gucci Yeung

China

Oppositely, if the labour input is much reduced but economy keeps rising and even faster than capital input, it can be called an economic revolution. For example, in the USA, workers and factories were getting less and less in the latest 50 years, but the output value of manufacture still increased seven times (I read it on newspaper)! They were not suffering a manufacturing recession, instead, they were carrying a great revolution. And since they have a balanced industrial system, they are still in a good economic development now though grow slowly. Maybe they are preparing for next economic revolution, who knows. And, economic growth doesn't equal to economic development. Economic growth is usually scaled by GDP, but the growth of GDP sometimes means nothing. A famous example, two cars meet on the highway, if they pass by safely, they make no influence to the GDP of the year. Instead, if they hit each other, the GDP will grow because of cleaning the road, buying new cars and the like, which means economic growth. However, the event is just a car accident but has nothing to do with economic development. Now China is in a high speed economic growth but maybe not in a good economic development. It's the main distance, a long way to go to catch up with the USA.

05:09 PM Aug 21 2010 |