I'd never want to bet against the resourcefulness of the system managers. I do think, however, that they've got a big challenge on their hands right now - how can the USG balance its books under current political constraints (meaning, we're run by a bunch of short-sighted idiots - who else could seriously contemplate Phil Gramm as Treasury Sec'y?) and how can the US bring its current account closer to balance? Something's got to give. It could be done intelligently, meaning gradually over the course of years. Or it could come in the form of a dollar crisis that could - *could* - really challenge the system's bailout managers.
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Over time, I've come to believe (and I'm sure this is a fairly mundane observation) that the best case economic scenario for the US - and the world dependent upon it - is a managed, relative decline of the giant into 'normal' nation status. Still wealthy, still very important, but no longer the central system node.
It seems the US's economic planning (to the extent it exists) and mode of operation has been built upon the fact and idea of global dominance - an unsurprising result of the Second World War's outcome.
So, in the past it was much easier to employ thousands upon thousands of Americans manufacturing, to use a non-glamorous example, washing machines when a shattered Europe and not-yet-fully developed (beyond battered Japan) Asia had yet to rebuild and rise.
Now, when the knowledge, communication, organizational and manufacturing infrastructure necessary to build washing machines exists in many different places (and advanced data control and telecommunications makes it possible to distribute production in previously impossible ways) the US loses its hold on the design and manufacture of a common bit of modern life - jobs and regional zones of prosperity fly away as a result.
You can replace "washing machines" with cars, machine tools, televisions, computers and a host of other common artifacts. This leaves the US absolutely dominant in esoteric areas such as space probe design and deployment, the creation of advanced fighter aircraft and, on the financial side, the immense buying power of its consumers.
Oddly, the things that make us special from a global economics point of view are also sources of a curious kind of weakness - a weakness tolerated and supported by other nations because they need it to feed their own systems.
Obviously, as everyone says, this high-wire act has a finite grace period. A smart hegemon would look around the room and start making clever deals with creditors and trading partners to sustain its own wealth along with theirs.
But what we have right now are unsmart hegemons who don't understand the financials and, dazzled by the advanced fighter jets and so on believe they can bomb, shout and insult their way to prolonged dominance.
It's a massive and mostly uncontrolled experiment and if I were an extraterrestrial hovering above and watching it would all seem very pathetic and amusing (look at those cavemen go). But of course, I'm a very terrestrial guy with friends and family around the globe who might be cast into destitution and misery if things tilt ever so much in the wrong direction.
Which puts me in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the victory of technocrats over ideologues. A truly vodka inspiring thought.
.d.