> ...it's only really now, with a falling $ and cracking of banks that US
> power shrinkage looks feasible. Yeah, please bring it on...
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There's little evidence to suggest that China and other countries would be
immune to a severe US depression - that their economic power would, in fact,
as Patrick suggests, be strengthened relative to the US.
The Chinese, Europeans and others don't appear to share his sanguine view that their economies have decoupled from the US, and that they would be the beneficiaries of a serious downturn in the world's largest market.
The greater likelihood is for a universal contraction in growth and employment, and - particularly in the absence of left-wing parties - major social crises with potentially barbaric consequences. Marxists have never welcomed crises, but framed them more objectively as presenting a choice between "socialism or barbarism", the outcome always dependent on the balance of power between the classes. The Great Depression was not a benign experience, especially for the European working class, when working class consciousness and organization was a vastly higher level than it is today.
On the other hand, if global capitalism is restructured in a more or less orderly way through greater foreign ownership of the US economy and more integrated international management of the system, there's still no reason to suppose this process, leaving aside the widespread human misery a global depression will leave in its wake, will contribute to a narrowing rather a further widening of class inequality on a global scale.
So maybe Patrick could more carefully explain why he thinks we should rally behind his slogan to "bring it on."