Ray Dalio sees a pattern that shows China killing America's economy. This 2,000-year chart explains why

bofa (Credit: courtesy of Bank of America Institute)

For roughly 1,800 years, the world’s largest economy sat somewhere along the Yangtze River. A new chart from the Bank of America Institute — spanning 2,000 years of global GDP data — shows that America’s moment at the top wasn’t destiny. It was an accident of history. And it’s ending.

The United States emerged from World War II as the undisputed economic superpower, accounting for nearly a third of global GDP at its postwar peak. Prophetically, in 1941, Fortune founder Henry Luce dubbed this era “the American century.”