For all its flaws, the US has long been a world-leading economy in a number of important respects. It has been an economic leader as the largest economy in the world since the late 1870s. While GDP growth has sometimes been faster elsewhere, none of its peers have persistently outperformed the US. And its GDP per capita has long been the highest of the world’s major economies. The US has also been a technological leader, at the forefront of historic advances in communication, transportation, space exploration and IT. And while China and other parts of Asia are now overtaking in some areas, the US is a leader in cutting-edge AI. The US has also been a financial leader given the dollar’s dominance and the size of its equity and bond markets. But economic outperformance has not always meant stock market outperformance - relative returns have been much more variable over history.
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