Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well of course, there are lots of elements to the economy, so it really depends on what you're measuring. But if you're measuring - this is the traditional measure - if you're measuring how much we produce, from our factories, our farms, our offices, then, yes, we are still number 1 in the world, and by a mile. The measure that economists use is called Gross Domestic Product. Again, it's simply the value of all final goods and services produced in the economy in a year's time. The U.S. has a Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, right now of $14 trillion, that's with a 'T,' trillion dollars. Next is Japan, then China and then Germany. And Japan is about half of our value, so we are still clearly the dominant economy in the world. We clearly have more production, more market transactions than any country in the world. And it's going to be a long, long time, economists feel, before we give up that title."