Is America Falling Behind?

America has alway been the pioneer in innovation, entrepreneurship, and education through our space programs, internet creators, and the wide range of upper level universities.  Although, people have become worrisome that America is on a downward slope implying that America's economy is slowly falling behind with automobile factories being forced into bankruptcy and the steady incline in job loss.  While at the same time other countries' economies, innovation, and job positions are rising.  For example, according to article from the US News, " Japan's Toyota Motor Co., meanwhile, is likely to overtake GM as the world's largest carmaker as early as this year."  Meanwhile, American still strives to stay at the top of the world's superpower with its military force, with its current campaigns in almost every country around the world.
In the sense that America is falling behind, maybe, but in a race when runners are on a track and one person starts to fall behind, the reason they may be falling back is only to catch their breath.  It's a long path for a country to stay a float in the competing world, but America must endure the race in order to remain at the top.

How to know what media sources are reliable?

What sources are reliable?  How do you know?  When I chose to look outside the box in search of news stories, articles, or try to educate myself otherwise, I prefer to look for many different sources.  The more the topic or issue shows up on different news mediums, the more I feel comfortable that the story I'm reading or hearing is true and unbiased.  The news media sources I prefer are BBC, NPR, Al-Jazeera, and CNN.
Other sources that I chose that are a different part of  the news mediums are Twitter, Facebook, and plain texting.  Through these channels I can see people's spontaneity of thought and sharing of fresh news. Once I have read or listened to the different media sources, I gather up the information, sort it out, and choose which news source is more reliable from that point on.

My understanding of American culture if I lived in another country

If I were to live in another country other than America and were to be asked what my understanding of American culture was, my reply would be that; I understand America to be the land of "the melting pot."  A country in which a whole bunch of different people from all over the world with different religions, attributes, ideas, music taste, food influence, etc have come together in one land and have formed a shared cultural being. America isn't just made up of one in particular culture.  It has many different flavors, varieties, and mixtures of people with different influences which in affect make up the whole of America.  The culture that makes up America, is the binding of people who have imported from other countries to America in order to live and be American.

What country will soon have the world's largest economy? Why?

     In my own point of view, I think that China will soon be the world's next largest economic provider.  The reasons I think that China will soon have the largest economy is because China is currently the highest provider in exports world wide, China has a very large population which can handle a higher percentage in volume of production for the world's supply and demand of items, and currently China is the world's second largest producer to the world's economy.  It is possible that China may or may not become the next largest economy provider, but I do think that no matter which country will be at the top of the world's economy; people around the world can work together with trading, supply and demand, exporting and importing of items and yet still reach toward the future success of the common good.  Although the U.S. will strive to stay at the top of the economic ladder, the only direction to climb once one has reached the top of the ladder, is down.
     According to the CIA World Factbook on China's economy, "China's economy since the late 1970's has changed from a closed, centrally planned system to a more market-oriented one that plays a major role in the global economy - in 2010 China became the world's largest exporter. After keeping its currency tightly linked to the US dollar for years, in July 2005 China revalued its currency by 2.1% against the US dollar and moved to an exchange rate system that references a basket of currencies. China in 2010 stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US, having surpassed Japan in 2001. The dollar values of China's agricultural and industrial output each exceeded those of the US, although China was second to the US in the value of services it produced. Still, per capita income is below the world average.  Economic development has progressed further in coastal provinces than in the interior, and approximately 200 million rural laborers and their dependents have relocated to urban areas to find work. "