I suspect that India's institutional shortcomings will mean that China will not experience "middle income syndrome", despite not innovating a lot.

Industrialists have been hammering on Indonesia's door for some time. They are deterred by Indonesia's "hire, no fire" policy.

Vietnam, I believe, has already hung out the "No Vacancies" sign.

A puzzling article. Very US centric. It largely restricts its observations to a narrow view of Indian and US bilateral trade - to the exclusion of the many other economic factors and countries influencing Indian and US economic performance..

Re para one - as fiscal 2012 (30 June 2012) has not yet occurred I'm wondering what figures the author is talking about.

In any case the 6.5% per annum increase for India appears healthy by most standards. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate_(latest_year)

One needs to remember that India's economy trades heavily with Europe and the US - all experiencing much lower and even negative 'growth'. It can therefore be expected that India's economy will show lower figures than many previous years.

Para three "The implications for the U.S. are unpleasant. No economy can substitute for a thriving India, for what will soon be the world’s largest workforce." What is the author talking about? The larger Chinese and Japanese economies more than substitute for India in many ways. The Chinese workforce (larger) and projected GDP growth are much higher than India's out to 10 years.

And then there's the odd comparison with Indonesia's vastly different economy.

A set of strange observations and arguments.

Pete