Can countries like Japan ever surpass America in nominal GDP?
No, it was never possible for Japan’s GDP to surpass that of the US — all that talk from the 1980s was ridiculous hype. And see where it got them. The US is not a 3rd world country, it’s on the cutting edge of technological and economic advance. That means it’s not possible for any country to have a GDP-per-person of 2.5X that of the US any time in the foreseeable future, no matter how crappy the US economy seems. In particular, Japan is now a declining country with a shrinking and ageing population, an economy that quit growing 20 years ago. The U.S. continues to have a robustly growing population. It’s an unstoppable certainty that Japan will only shrink relative to the U.S. for the remainder of this century. Nothing can change that, certainly not something as minor as them striking oil.
