ONE ECONOMY TO RULE THEM ALL:

For the last 15 years, Credit Suisse has been compiling data on where global private wealth is located. The data do not perfectly capture a U.S.-China economic comparison but they do not need to, they just need to be just somewhere in the ballpark. The reason some imprecision is acceptable is the stunning size of the gap they show between the U.S. and China. As of the middle of 2015, Credit Suisse puts the stock of American private wealth as $85.9 trillion and Chinese private wealth at $22.8 trillion.

There are many things to be said about this but they all pale before the number itself. What notion of China as peer or genuine challenger stands up to a $63 trillion private wealth gap? What information can compensate for $63 trillion?

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