> assess it. It seems clear that the dollar-based financial hegemony that
> sits astride the globe is not likely to simply go "poof" any time soon.
What hegemony? The US owed the rest of the planet $1.7 trillion last year; it's probably close to $2 trillion by now. The EU banking system is the largest single creditor in the world economy, and is leveraging those EU trade surpluses into ever-wider speculations. EU firms are snapping up US corporations, insurance firms, banks and bonds like there's no tomorrow (Chrysler, Banker's Trust, Transamerica, etc. etc. etc.). A few giant US multinationals are doing OK, like Microsoft and Intel, but that's not the same thing as the US economy as a whole, which is clearly being starved of investment. Wall Street's ideologues may claim to reign, but only Euro/Asiacapital rules. The new metropoles don't *want* the USA to crash; they want an orderly accession to Empire. And what they want is what they get.
-- Dennis