Most readers are familiar with the basic equation for calculating gross domestic product (GDP). It’s consumption (C) plus investment (I) plus government spending (G) plus net exports (X – M). The short version is GDP = C + I + G + (X – M). Of course, there are many technical issues behind those elements. For example, we include inventory build-up even if inventories are not reflected in final sales. (Many analysts substitute final sales for that reason). Net exports are usually negative for the U.S. (X < M), so a smaller negative compared to the prior quarter actually adds to GDP. And it gets more complicated from there. There’s an even easier way to think about GDP. You can just calculate working population (W) times productivity per worker (P) or W x P. In that equation, you’re asking how many people are actually working and how productive they are on average. That equals total output. And this brings us to the little-known reason why China will never pass the U.S. in GDP.
Productivity is on the decline worldwide for reasons economists do not fully understand. That means the only way to grow your output is to grow your workforce. Some developing economies are doing that with rapid population growth, but that growth is starting to slow down due to better educational opportunities for women and increased urbanization. Developed economies from Japan to Germany and France are watching their populations decline steeply and their GDP has been stagnant as a result. A few developed economies such as the U.S. and Canada have been able to maintain population growth, not with birthrates but with immigration (legal and illegal). But that may be hitting limits in the U.S. as illegal immigrants overwhelm the social safety net. Nowhere is the population situation more dangerous than in China. Its one-child policy from 1980 to 2016 wiped out millions of Chinese births and skewed the population toward men (who cannot give birth to a new generation) as 35 million baby girls were killed at birth. China is expected to lose half its population or 700 million citizens by 2100. This near-extinction level trend has already begun.
What’s left of the population will be heavily skewed toward older generations, who will require elder care that will further drain the productivity of those relatively few who are working age. The demographic collapse equals an economic collapse and will mark the end of China’s dream of economic and military dominance. In truth, it may mark the end of the Chinese Communist Party and the collapse of China as a centralized political entity. This will be the most momentous population collapse in the history of the world.
Ken Cao covers exactly this and many more reasons why China is going to hell in a hand basket:
https://youtube.com/@KenCaoMacroLens/videos
Perhaps the Chinese can take all the somali’s from Trump. That would be a marriage made in Heaven.
The Japanese won’t. They are encouraging Filipinos. Nicer people.
The reason Merkle let all the immigrants in was that Mercedes and co could find enough workers for their car and ammunition plants.
Interesting tough that Russia so far doesn’t have that issue.
Perhaps because the russian babes are short of men.
Vacuums create opportunities.
We should import a few thousand of them ladies instead of Vietnamese prostitutes.
…..”and skewed the population toward men (who cannot give birth to a new generation)”……
Once they have become sufficiently woke their surplus men can wear dresses & identify as women. Then the non binary transgenders will spit out babies like well oiled machines.
At least that’s the way the UN thinks it will work.