Comparing the US and China

This chart graphically shows the economic and environmental trends of the United States and China. The chart begins in 1960 and continues until 2010. Seeing the chart is this ways really shows the frighting trends and raises some serious questions of both countries environmental policies and China's economic policies. Beginning in 1960, the United States is one of only a handful of countries that are visible on the chart. Of the countries visible, it is well ahead of the pack. This really shows how far ahead the US was economically ahead of the world. It also shows that the United States has always been a high consumer of energy. As time goes on, the United States remains well ahead in energy consumption until China passes it in 2008. It also remains near the top GDP per capita. China was not visible at the beginning of the timeline in 1960. Like other countries whose standards of living increase, China's consumption of energy increases significantly until it became the highest consumer of energy in the world in 2008. However, China's GDP per capita remains near the bottom. This goes to show that while China's economy has boomed, the population's standard of living remains near the bottom. In the second chart, I again used GDP per capita. But in this chart I compared it to the amount each country invested in foreign markets. This chart tells a far different story than the first chart. The first chart showed the United States well separated from the rest of the world through the entire chart. In this chart, all the countries are together at the beginning in 1970. As time progresses, the United States shoots ahead of most of the world in terms of foreign investment. In general, the foreign investment increased in most countries. This supports the economic theory of the world being flat, meaning the world's economy is becoming increasingly more interdependent. Also, we see the United States' level of foreign investment fluctuate a lot. This is most likely due to recessions and times of economic growth. When the United States' economy is growing, foreign investment goes up. When it is struggling, we tend to keep our money here. China's bubble is more constant relative to the United States. The GDP per capita does not increase, but the level of foreign investment does. We see China's investments reach 50B and hold steady until the 2000's. Here, it really takes off. I think this clearly shows that when China's level of GDP increased, they began investing heavily in other countries such as the United States.