The article doesn’t seem to drill down to the root causes clearly enough:
1. The (misguided) Iraq war has caused skyrocketing oil prices, in turn causing commodity inflation. This makes Americans particularly poorer and commodity producers richer. The war induced oil price increase from probably around $40 to $120 is the largest transfer of wealth from US to the rest of the world. May be more than the cost of the war itself. As a secondary effect, this devalues US $ that makes Americans feel poorer due to inflation.
2. The (Greenspan induced) cheap loans – housing bubble mania has caused a great waste of capital due to misdirected use of wealth (to build unnecessary mansions). This loss of capital is now causing near or real bankruptcies, rising unemployment, inflation, devaluation of $ etc., making Americans poorer.
So, it is more a case of US screwing up on a grand scale as a nation than a big “Rise of the Rest” story.
Tell me: who cares about the tallest building, largest mall/casino/ferris wheel etc.,?
