I didn´t compare the US to those countries, I´m just saying that to cover interest with printed money never ended well and never will.
The US unemployment statistics doesn´t really tell us a lot, the sloping off happens all the time. It would fall if nobody new got a job or got unemployed, but just by the fact that people gave up searching for job.
The housing debt in the US is also different from 2008 and the low interest rate is mostly locked in now, so people will not have to leave their houses to the same degree, because of higher interest rates. This however doesn´t mean that the housing market will not crash, because higher interest will make buyers dry up. The average housing price is about half a million USD in the US, each 1% extra interest would be 5000 USD extra a year, so it would be harder for buyers.
As for the resources, clearly the countries differ in the resources they have. And sure, the US has a lot of human resources, but as far as I remember, China won the most math oplympiades, both teams possibly being able to communicate in Chinese:
Coached by Carnegie Mellon's Po-Shen Loh, the U.S. team tied for first place with China at the 60th International Mathematical Olympiad.
www.cmu.edu
And half of the americans can´t read an 8th grade book according to Washington Post:
The US isn´t what it used to be. Paul Kennedy wrote an excelent book "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers", empires are never forever and the US is acting exactly like a falling empire as described by Paul Kennedy.