The $123trn question

$123trn is a lot of money - it could almost repay most of the UK government's UK debt and my credit card bill combined.

It is also the astonishing number put on China’s likely economic size in 2040 according to a fantastically bullish article this month in Foreign Policy, a US-based ‘thought-leadership’ publication. The author of this article is Robert Fogel, an alumni of the economics faculty at the University of Chicago and nobel prize-winning demographic expert who reckons China is going to be really, really big. In his words: “In 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123tn, or nearly three times the economic output of the entire globe in 2000. China’s per capita income will hit $85,000, more than doub...