The United States has continuously been the world’s leading economic force since it overtook Britain in 1872–until Thursday, when China’s economy took over, thus breaking a 142-year winning streak.
President Barack Obama can add this to his list of other record-breaking accomplishments. These include being the first U.S. president to see his country’s credit rating downgraded multiple times, and seeing a record 92 million workers outside the labor force.
These can all be attributed to the president’s politics-based, as opposed to results-based, domestic policy.
The International Monetary Fund announcement that China’s economy is now worth $17.61 trillion compared to America’s $17.4 trillion, according to the Daily Mail, which reported things will only get worse:
China – whose wealth has accelerated in recent decades amid rapid industrialization – is expected to extend its lead, with the IMF estimating its economy will be worth just under $26.98 trillion in 2019.
That would be 20 per cent bigger than the U.S. economy, which is forecast to be worth $22.3 trillion by then.
Although Chris Giles at the Financial Times predicted this would happen as far back as April, according to Business Insider, the White House appeared oblivious to the obvious.
On Wednesday, the day before the International Monetary Fund made its announcement, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest touted the U.S. economy to the press corps. Story continues after clip.
http://youtu.be/LBfocQQz_rA
The president himself bragged about the U.S. economy at the close of last month during a CBS News “60 Minutes” interview with Steve Kroft.
“The country is definitely better off than we were when I came into office,” he told Kroft, although “they [the American people] don’t feel it,” HotAir reported.
The president must not be spending much time reading and watching the news.
Two years after Obama took office, Standard & Poors downgraded the U.S. credit rating below AAA for the first time in its history to AA+. S&P did this, in part, because of the country’s spiraling debt. Just four days prior to S&P’s decision, Congress had voted to once again raise the debt ceiling.
And how did the White House react? By attacking. The administration launched an investigation into S&P’s role in the rating of mortgage-backed securities–those that played a role in the 2008 financial crisis, according to The New York Times.
Since then, Fitch and Moody’s have also downgraded their own ratings of the United States’ creditworthiness.
Employment, a major benchmark of a national economy, is no better. CNS News reported last week:
A record 92,584,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in September, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent, a level it has not seen in 36 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.
After the Bureau made its announcement, the conservative Americans For Prosperity released the following video, using humor to describe a sobering situation.
http://youtu.be/qk8d_Ct5cZk
