According to cia.gov, our account balance is $ -738,600,000,000. We are 188th out of a 188 horse field. Spain is our closed competitor at $ -145,600,000,000. Great Britain is the only other negative twelve -frigging twelve- digit competitor. Contrast that to China's $360,700,000,000. Our public debt is 60% of GDP, which puts us at number 26. Argentina is number 29 with 59% pd/GDP.
Now, our purchasing power parity GDP is just behind the entire EU, and roughly double China's, but our GDP growth rate of 2.2% puts us at 183 out of 218. Contrast that with China's 11.4%. Assuming that remains constant when does China overtake us?
Our industrial production growth rate is 0.5%. The oft-mentioned Argentina is at 7.5% and China at 13.4%
These numbers are 2007 numbers. Probably back when we had parity with the Canadian dollar. I'd say that an Obama presidency, with it's effective Income, Capital Gains, Social Security, Universal Health Care, assorted other All Good Things social spending entitlements might set us solidly on the road to becoming a superpower in only our hemisphere.