I've been getting tired of all the schadenfreude surrounding the United States' financial crisis and all the articles pointing to America's imminent abdication as world leader. While I've been writing articles pointing to the demise of the old Wall Street, I actually think that what is going to take its place is better and will cement America's financial hegemony. Also, the New Economy is still dominated by American companies and American inventions.
Europe, Japan and Russia all suffer from declining populations and have financial problems of their own. Russia's economic power is based on energy prices that could easily fall just as fast as they rose. China and India, while surely enjoying a long term rise, have per capita income below Samoa and lots of internal problems.
Even on world affairs, who is really challenging America's preeminent position in naval, ground, air or space power? Europe? Japan? Iran? Russia? There is a big difference between bullying Georgia and truly challenging the US's position as world hegemon. Japan and India have moved strongly towards the US in the last decade. Every Arab country save Syria and Sudan are either outright American allies or have at least decent relations. In Europe, the leader of every major country except Spain is friendly even to the Bush administration. China, while wary of US intentions as we surround them with allies, still has friendly relations with the US and deepening economic ties. In addition, the US spends more on its military than the next 20 countries combined and the last I checked, the UN is still located in New York.
Anyway, I've been meaning to write an essay about this, but thankfully, Marcus Gee at the (Canadian) Globe and Mail did it for me...check it out here.
It's time to break out of our funk. So we'll have a recession. So we'll have to save more and export more. So we'll have to prioritize in our foreign policy rather than try to tackle every problem ourselves. Big deal. We've been through a heck of alot worse than this in our history (the Civil War, Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam era and 1970s). Let's stand up and all remember that we're blessed to live in this great country of ours, and if you don't realize that, you're not paying attention.
Amen, brother. It's like when people say that things are getting worse than they've ever been (though the people that used to say that will probably start changing their tune as of today). Preposterous! Such a flagrant disregard of history drives me nuts.
Posted by: Rev Swank | November 05, 2008 at 11:28 AM