Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote: The US is still the world's largest manufacturer, consumer market and provider of global currency reserves, but there is little doubt the gap is closing in all of these areas with respect to China and to other large faster-growing economies like Russia and India.
This is registered by the current decline in the US dollar, which is partly being driven by immediate fears of a pending US slowdown but, beyond that, by a deeper sense that US global power is weakening in relative terms. This larger perspective is what has been encouraging the gradual diversification by central banks and other large institutional investors away from the dollar and towards the euro and other rising currencies.
So while Carrol may be right to draw attention to the US's continuing pre-eminent economic status, it's a real exaggeration to state that "the whole world is tripping over itself to cater to it". It's quite evident the world is cautiously beginning to move in the other direction.
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