SDR: I agree with some of what you said, but would definitely disagree regarding China. China is not nearly the economic powerhouse that they are made out to be. If you were to catalog the various issues confronting China, ranging from mass unemployment, serious health problems (AIDs, SARS), lack of natural resources (esp. energy resources) and a growing discontent and disconnect between the entitled classes (either politically or financially entitled) and the peasantry, then you would see that China is not nearly as well positioned as they represent.

In spite of how badly the US is shooting itself in the foot, the fact remains that the other significant players out there, including the Euro zone and China, are actually doing worse or are more poorly positioned to muscle their way out of this. Wait until one of the major Eastern European countries pulls an “Argentina”, or Russia decides to turn off the energy spigot to Western Europe and then you’ll see things get really dicey.

Same thing with China. The US is China’s largest market, but we’re not buying their products like we were previously. They’re trying to stimulate consumer demand within China, but Chinese consumers don’t buy like Americans do and are probably one or two generations from becoming “trained” consumers like we are.

Not to sound nationalistic, but America is still America and as stupid as we can be, we generally find a way to “Forrest Gump” our way back out.