As an American, I absolutely believe this. China has invested so much more in real industry, energy build out, etc. and they took their medicine with the housing market. They have exponentially more engineers and it's much more of a true meritocracy. In the US we've papered over all of our problems so that the elite can continue to extract more and more from the common man. We don't have "free market capitalism" we have fiat corporatism.