Middle-class wilt: what's happened to Asia's middle-earners?

单集文稿 ...

• 00:00

  Do you remember in 2010

• 00:09

  when Ted talks for all the rage?

• 00:12

  Here's the author Martin Jakes

• 00:14

  speaking to an audience in London about the rise of China.

• 00:18

  If you look at the chart at the top here,

• 00:21

  you'll see that in 2025,

• 00:23

  these Goldman Sachs projections suggest

• 00:24

  that the Chinese economy will be almost the same size

• 00:27

  as the American economy.

• 00:29

  The chart shows a projected GDP of $31 trillion in today's money.

• 00:35

  Not bad.

• 00:36

  US GDP was $27 trillion last year.

• 00:40

  Those kind of forecasts for growth in Asia

• 00:43

  did not escape the attention of US executives,

• 00:46

  like the CEO of General Electric.

• 00:49

  Here's the quote from Jeff Immelt.

• 00:51

  The American consumer is not going to be the engine of global growth.

• 00:54

  It's going to be the billion people joining the middle class in Asia.

• 00:57

  But it's not exactly worked out,

• 00:59

  because in 2023,

• 全部文稿