Not so many decades ago, the same predictions were made about the
Soviet Union. In Moscow there were BMW dealers, and the Paris fashion
stores, and fancy food stores, and all the rest. But only the elite
could afford any of it. The common people, whose labors supported the
lavish lifestyles of the elite were generally on the verge of
starvation following one failed progrom after another. Look at them
now. When the rural areas start to crave what the urban areas afford
through the labors of the farmers, China will face some major
problems. Like the USSR with it's military might, even the guns could
not hold it together.

China is growing, it's true. They will soon be building their own
jumbo jets in competition with Boeing and Airbus, and with their
workforce, they can still build cheaper.

China, as with most Asian countries, also plans much better for the
future; making plans for where they will be in 50 to 100 years. The US
only plans an average of 5 to 10 years down the road.

The EU is already having problems with staying together. In fact, they
have had problems from the beginning. Many countries signed on
begrudgingly because they feared losing their individual national
identities.

The US has already been on a track of change. The industrial
revolution is the past. Other countries will take over industrial
production. The US has switched to being a service and information
source, and out sources those to countries like India which is now one
of the prime centers for tech support, etc.

Progress means change, and change brings progress. Only time will
reveal where the chips will fall.

On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 20:41:17 GMT, "Larry J."
> wrote:

>Waiving the right to remain silent, the guvnor
> said:
>
>> China has overtaken the US in sales of televisions and mobile
>> phones. In the next few years, it will become the biggest market
>> for computers. And a double digit rise in urban incomes has
>> drawn Cartier, Prada and Armani to expand here faster than
>> anywhere else in the world.
>
>That's certainly what I saw in Shanghai last July.
>
>But like the article says, this is happening in the urban areas,
>particularly that of Shanghai and along the southeast corridor and
>parts of Bejing. China has four or five times the population of
>the USA. The rural Chinese, which are many hundreds of millions,
>haven't enjoyed much of this.
>
>> From luxury confectionery and designer clothes to imported beers
>> and expensive cars, Chinese shoppers are buying as they have
>> never bought before.
>
>That's true. The streets are now full of cars, as opposed to
>bicycles, as I saw on my last trip there in 1998. They have even
>turned many of the cities' bike lanes into traffic lanes.
>
>> By 2015, the bank predicts, "Chinese consumers will likely have
>> displaced US consumers as the primary engine of global economic
>> growth."
>
>China could grow TOO fast. They may very well need to moderate it
>a bit. The social and economic pressures could be too much for
>them to handle. An internal explosion could cause the regime to
>try to turn back the clock fifty years, overnight.

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