ZH - Russia, China, India and Vietnam = more than half of the people on the planet and they didn't go anywhere for almost the enitrey fot the last century.
They are now growing, all of them, more than two or three times the growth of the old OECD majors. They have no intention of denying their populations all the growth goodies going. I would have thought that their growth would have had some positive impact of our growth. China will overtake the EU in a few years and unlike the EU Chinas economy is growth economy. Then there is India and Russia to add fuel.
None of those countires were in the system for the 20th Century, now they are and it sort of makes any comarison with the last century...meaningless.