> But what if the U.S. is enjoying a long upwave, characterized by a
> high and rising profit rate and the leading edge of technical
> innovation, and the laggards are lending money to the "re-developing"
> leader?
But they're lending the money to finance their own expansion into metropolitan markets, and thereby neutralize the US tech edge. It's pretty hard to find examples of unrestricted American corporate supremacy these days; Microsoft may be the last true US monopoly, but Linux and the Feds seem to be taking care of that. The OECD says Japan and Sweden spend the most in civilian R&D as a percent of GDP, but Finland and Germany are also ahead of the US.
I'd argue, in fact, that we are indeed in the beginning of a long upwave, but one financed by cheap Japanese and EU funds. Which is why there probably won't be a tremendous crash, just a long, drawn-out adjustment process, sort of like the one the UK went through in the Fifties, when it lost *its* hegemony. Should be a terrific time for the Left, though -- all that surplus capital sloshing around is finally giving the global proletariat something concrete to wax utopian over.
-- Dennis