[se_ohio_young_conservative]

Saying this may wound some pride.

But we are not at the very top of the food chain anymore. Whats happening in Asia over the last 20 years has been amazing. Sometimes you have to tip your cap. They seem to be a whole heck of a lot smarter than we.

Remember that novel idea of not buying anything if you didnt have the cash in your pocket.

[Mark319]

We Americans brought this on ourselves by buying imports, cars and electronics, primarily. The people in Asian countries are not as dumb, they buy mostly domestically produced products.

[lexusppd]

"Countries such as China and India are now big enough to help guide the global economy. In the past, a sharp downshift in the US and Europe would decisively slow the rate of global growth."

This is nonsense, at least for now. America is fully 23% of the ENTIRE world GDP and by far the largest consuming nation on the planet. What exactly would China and India do with all they manufacture if not sell it to us and the Europeans? Compared to us, China's GDP is 3.2 trillion and India's about 1.1 trillion. Their combined GDP is LESS then 1/3 of ours, which is almost 14 trillion and when compared to ours AND the EU it is a minuscule 1/10th or less Total world GDP is around 54 Trillion. Of that we are 13.8 trillion and the EU is about 16 trillion. Together that amounts to 60% or so of total world GDP. If both America and the EU nations falter the entire world economy sinks for sure. The fact is since we are the single biggest consumers in the world, if WE slide into recession the rest of the world will follow. It may not always be so in the future but it most assuredly is at this time

[fuzzy dunlop]

The biggest long term damage to the US economy may well be the sovereign wealth funds from the Gulf States and China coming in an hoovering up US assets.

As I said on another thread, you wanna restructure the State Bank of Kentucky (eg) - well, you can’t - we need to make a call to Abu Dhabi - they own 30% of the stock of the bank now.

The weak dollar and high oil prices are making the Gulf awash with petro-dollars, which they’re reinvesting in US assets at knock-down prices.

[PGalt]

Thanks for posting.

Anyone interesting in this article might find this one even more interesting...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_age_of_nonpolarity.html

...the comments are interesting, also.

[Mike Darancette]

In the 1980s the Japanese were supposed to become the financial power.