True but it helps that:

- all US states all speak the same language

- US got oil

- the dollar is the reserve currency

The USA has multiple advantages, not just one.

Given the potential for wars this day, being surrounded by mostly ocean may also prove very useful as well.

There's also the fact that pretty much every useful technology from WW2 ended up being made by dominant industry in the US, because everyone else was rubble.

Silicon Valley was Silicon Valley before FAANG

Airbus came much later than Boeing and managed to be a worthy global competitor.

Which makes it even more impressive.

But I can tell you as a French, not having any natural resource and an economy mostly based on services in today's world is not making me bet on a bright future for us.

I saw there's still plenty of manufacturing in France, not just the service industry.

China had none of those advantages, and overtook the EU already in many high-tech industries.

Indeed, Europe had none of those advantages when it rose to Number 1.

China has over advantages, like have a sixth of the population in the world, having massive mineral and coal resources and being the factory of Europe and the US.

Baring a miracle, my continent has nowhere to go but down.

We have no metals, not fossil fuels, massive debts, an expensive lifestyle and few industries that cannot be copied elsewhere.

Post covid and the ukraine war, we are in deep, deep trouble.

Politically the extremes are rattling more and more, and they may very well win at some point because things are looking bleak.

Of those, only the resources are an inherent problem, and I'm not sure if it's really that bad if you take a continental perspective. I think you need to take a step back, and look at production of goods, technology, and services, not at money flow. In the end, getting rid of debt is just one default away, and that's a political decision. The Chinese exploit their resources and work hard - good thing they invest at home and in their military, because otherwise they might never get something back for their troubles.

The EU incorporated a lot of countries in the last 30 years, some of them in a pretty bad shape after their transictions from socialism into a market economy. Of course it would decrease GDP per capita.

But GDP per capita, and Nominal GDP per capita non adjusted by purchase power parity only tells half the history.

Free healthcare, good quality public education, cheaper and or subsidized housing, better worker protections and other good wellfare policies largely make for the nominal GDP difference betweeen the US and most EU countries.

Not to mention that a lot of economic activity not directly related to goods in the US like the sue-happy judicial economy, speculative financial services and insurance, and the cartelized highly inneficient healthcare industry are a big portion of the GDP.

> ncorporated a lot of countries in the last 30 years, some of them

Every of those countries was in a better shape than China, when it started the transition to a market economy.

> Free healthcare, good quality public education, cheaper and or subsidized housing

You do understand that those (highly desirable) goods need to be paid for, and in the past have been paid for by the economic success of the successful EU countries like the Netherlands, etc. But even those have been loosing their competitive edge more and more vis-a-vis China and the US. Loss of access to cheap Russian energy will make this worse. With economic decline those niceties will wither, too ...

Here's what a famous british tabloid has to say on the topic:

https://archive.is/8aqVH

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35591338

France has the same GDP per captia of Alabama, but I know where I rather live.