>
> Nope. The US really does owe the new metropoles 2 trillion euros. It's
> that simple. If the US were self-financing and investing furiously in its
> industrial base, you could make a case for a renaissance of the Pax
> Americana. But the new metropoles are the ones furiously investing in the
> US, while the rentiers invest in their portfolios.
>
Do you think it's possible to maintain that the US has improved its competitive position--however relatively and by whatever means--*and* that both the EU and Japan have better long term positions staked out? Isn't is possible that US hegemony is built on disequilibria--like its ability (finite, but apparently quite underestimated) to take on debt? Put differently, do you think its possible that hegemony is the ability to defer the moment that the "fundamentals" come to bite you in the ass?
--Christian