"The wealth of the West has gone East. The trillions of surplus...

"The wealth of the West has gone East. The trillions of surplus in the East is basically equivalent to the trillions of deficit in the West. Until that flow is rebalanced"

This is not the first time, the Opium Wars bascially consistid of a trade imbalance heavily in favour of the Chinese, so the West imported Opium, the only thing they could get the Chinese addicted to and hence demand. Now, the West is addicted to cheap goods, Opium wont get us out of it this time.

The only way the West is going to compete against the East is through supiror quality goods, ie Applied Technology. Thanks to trading hundreds of thousands of Eastern people in Westeren Universities for their tasty money that technological gap will shrink without some serious reinvestment in that area.

Did you know that Scientists are one of the lowest paid professional (Uni trained, not including Arts students) workers? That needs to change if you want to stay ahead in the Technology game.