China's economy to over take America by 2012

The only thing that shocks me in this story is that it will take so damn long.  America, like  Western Culture, is dying.  That much is pretty clear.  I'm of the school of thought that the West has been on the decline since the 19th century.  When European intellectuals threw out the last vestiges of Christian teaching, and nation states lifted themselves up above all other considerations, it was the beginning of the end.  America, always keen on following Europe, was only behind by a couple decades or so.  Being a new country, it had to hit its zenith, which it did between around 1900 and 1965 or so.  Since then, it's been - with a few bumps in the road - a steady decline.  Europe is more or less finished.  Odds makers are no longer asking if, but when Europe will become Eurabia, the north-westernmost extension of the Islamic world.  Meanwhile in America, the primary candidate for taking control of the wheel is China.  In response to a political ad that showed a Chinese lecturer discussing the downfall of America, I saw a fellow blast it as untrue.  In an interview on CNN, he said the problem with the commercial was that it linked America's downfall to policies that the Chinese have adopted, including stimulus-like spending.  What I couldn't help notice is that China, unlike America, didn't go into debt to China to pull it off. 

No, it's only a question  of which generation is ongoing to the be the first to get it in the throat.  Having spent 50 years or so apologizing for every sin, and focusing on every fault, most Americans don't think there's much there worth saving.  Or at least far too many think that.  If America tanks, what of it?  No big deal.  Things will just keep on keeping on.  Of course that's for those Americans who take time off from texting, playing video games, and working for the next tech upgrade to even think about such things.  If money, drugs, and sex are the three gifts of post-modern America in which so many abideth, then apathy and complacency are the crook and scepter with which we rule our crumbling domain.  And we only will be able to measure the results by the suffering of our posterity.  I just have to remind them that while the temptation to never forgive us will be strong, forgive us they must.