Prosperity in the USA

The USA is still the richest nation by a big margin.  Yet, many of its industries are dwindling, mostly hostage to expensive oil and cheap labour cost in China/India.

However, in the last year, things are changing.  The price of energy has fallen due to shale gas extraction.  This used to be difficult until fracking technology came along.  Suddenly dry (ie no oil) gas miners are no longer good investments as the price of shale gas plummeted.  There is so much gas under the ground in USA that BHP had to write off billions from its interest in the USA.

And in the mean time, the labour cost in China and India is going up.

Today, RB suggests that maybe it is time to look not north buy north east again for Australia.  There are many minerals and raw materials that the USA imports 100% of... that Australia has abundance of (bauxite, tantalum).