iamnotback,
if you are working to tie in Armstrongs work with your own - how / does China's lack of knowledge capital (due to export driven / cheap labor economy - from your essay) link up to the rise in Asia after MA's forecast of the Sovereign Debt Bubble bursting (Asia first, then the West). I'm assuming here that China's size will lead Asia? Would be an interesting read.
Please refer to the link to the upthread discussion of Michael Pettis' blogs in my recent comments. China is transitioning from an unbalanced export, fixed capital intensive Industrial Age economy to a service, consumer oriented Knowledge Age economy. The bottom in 2020 of China's downturn, will be the shift over point where China can start growing again.
Asia has the youth. The West has infanticide, feminism, multiculturalism, bankrupt pensions, Marxism, and $trillions in unfunded liabilities to its useless population of spoiled brats. The West will continue collapsing through at least 2032.95. Then it may get a deadcat bounce, then collapsing anew until it is third world economy. Spain's fall from a world empire to a third world country is exemplary. It remains to be seen if and how soon the productive cultures that remain in the West can effectively break away from the useless dead weight. Spain was mired for a century in the infighting as it collapsed from within.