+1. America isn't the Rome of the past that only lasted for how long? Nor, is it the Egypt that was once the center of the world. The copyright and patent offices are in America. And as long as they remain in America, the USA will remain the #1 nation in the world!
Sorry to dissapoint but each country has/can have it's own patent office. They're based on international commerce treaties. Every major country/export powerhouse has their version and they all "cooperate".
Lazy thinking. If economic prosperity could only be achieved through imbalanced trade, then why are Americans wealthy? China isn't South Korea (50mm population), Taiwan (20 million), or even Japan (150 million). Those nations can't gain international significance without exports. China is larger than US and western Europe combined. The lowest hanging fruit right now is on the low end of the manufacturing value chain.... But why would it need to stay there? What can you do to create wealth, that the Chinese can't match?
Actually the Chinese are not creating wealth, they have just set up a wealth transferring machanism with the blessings of politicians of the West. Good ideas create wealth. History shows that for the most part only the West has created wealth. There isn't a breakthrough, other than gun powder AFAIK, that can be attributed to Chinese or to any other nation in the East. From Physics to Chemistry to high technology basic research, everything has been invented by Westerners. Given this historical fact, they cannot claim a share of the world's wealth.
No....... Gunpowder...yes everybody knows this. Papermaking....transmitted from China to Europe via the Arabs after the Battle of Talas in modern day Kyrgyzstan when the arabian army seized some chinese paper makers. Printing....The chinese invented printing 1000 years before Gutenberg in the West and he might have been influenced by Chinese type moving presses, but the diffusion is unclear. Compass...I think the Chinese and Europeans independently invented this and was then transmitted to the Middle East. Handheld repeating crossbow..invented 5th century BC by Chinese,It was said this was spread to Europe by the marauding Huns eventually appearing in Europe 10th Century off the top of my head Water pistons,blast furnance,canal pound lock,etc,etc
Wishful thinking. What you wish could be ascribed to some sort of racial superiority is really the product of an incredibly productive European Renaissance. For 1500 years, western Europe was the bastion of religiously befuddled, barely literate nobles and truly ignorant serfs. By every metric, western Europe was no better than the sub-Saharan Africa of today... far out-shadowed by what was being achieved in the Far and Middle East. But for the subsequent 500 years, Europe was at the forefront of human development by every metric. Indeed, without the contributions of great European thinkers and scientists, we wouldn't be where we are today. But the Japanese achieved much of the same progress in 40 years (during the Meiji period), and China is now finally catching up today. If you hope your kids will do better than pump gas... you better do a lot better than twiddling your thumbs while wistfully reminding people that Marie Curie and Isaac Newton happened to be white. Whatever you call it, riddle me this: what is it about *you* that leads you to believe you (and your children) will be perpetually 5x wealthier than people working twice as hard as you are? Why, in 30 years, should people who studied twice as hard as you in school, who have double your knowledge and skill sets, and who work 60 hour weeks earn less than half of what you earn?
Those who try hard usually never get the results they're after. Those who are laid back and appear not to break a sweat or care will take home the bacon.