Recently I read an editorial titled “Uncle Sam’s Scam”. It refreshed the memories of a Zeitgeist movie I saw long ago. It was about how the United States has tricked the world to satisfy its avarice and accumulated so much wealth that not even in the next 50 years can any country dream of. Ironically, many of us are not even aware of the scandal going around us. When our police are busy capturing thieves who stole a few lakhs from the banks, the people who stole Trillions of Dollars are sitting in the White House ( or in the Treasury next to it )! The reason US is also the most technologically advanced nation also lies in this very fact because it’s obvious that money attracts talent and talent leads to innovation. Here’s a brief description of the truth (as I see it) :
Let us start with the World Bank’s list of Top 10 countries by its GDP ( Gross Domestic Product : its the combined sum of all the goods and services produced within the borders of the country. Basically, it is a measure of the economy of a country ) :
(Note : The GDP specified is in Million $ )
| 1 |  United States |
14,204,322 |
| — |  Eurozone |
13,565,479[3] |
| 2 |  Japan |
4,909,272 |
| 3 |  People’s Republic of China |
4,326,187[2] |
| 4 |  Germany |
3,652,824 |
| 5 |  France |
2,853,062[4] |
| 6 |  United Kingdom |
2,645,593 |
| 7 |  Italy |
2,293,008 |
| 8 |  Brazil |
1,612,539 |
| 9 |  Russia |
1,607,816 |
| 10 |  Spain |
1,604,174 |
It is clearly evident that US figures in the TOP of the list with 14 Trillion $ economy. The closest is Eurozone or the “European Union”, which is actually a union of many European counties, so it cannot be considered as a “one entity” and has been excluded from the rankings. So, effectively, Japan is the 2nd country in the list with close to 5 Trillion $ economy. The difference, is 9 Trillion $.
About 200 years ago, India or rather the Indian-subcontinent had the largest economy in the World. Now it ranks 12th. So what did the US do to come to the Top of the list ? Looking into the annals of the period of its independence, we see its conditions were similar to what other countries suffered during independence. Nor there is any clarity in the argument that they’ve had adequate time to develop and grow given that they got independence in the 18th century, because that would contradict the fact that United Kingdom was never even captured for a millennium and around half of the world (including both India and US ) were under the U.K. territory at not-so-long-ago point in the history. So then what is the arcane recipe to affluence they’ve got ? The answer is, an amalgam of Debt as Money and the “Globalized” Dollar.
@abhishekdelta - on life, universe and everything 