> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Charlie Bell > Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 5:27 PM > To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion > Subject: Re: Conspiracy theories > > > On 29/07/2008, at 4:10 AM, Jon Louis Mann wrote: > > you are right about bushco using his presidency to enrich his > > cronies, lance, but i doubt he comprehends what an enormous > > deleterious effect his policies have had on the global economy. > > The global economy is still growing at 4%. > > As I have said before, the assertion that the USA is the world's > engineroom is no longer true.
It certainly isn't true as it was 8 years ago, but economists are debating how tied the world is to the spending of the US on credit cards (and their Fanny Mae equivalents.) >An American crash or collapse might slow > the rest of the world, but it won't plunge the rest of the world into > recession necessarily any more. That's true. And, you see in my post that the consumption of the most critical commodity (oil) is not what it was 30 years ago. But.....there are still a lot of unknowns. For example, the US has been running a gigantic trade deficit this decade....near 800 billion last year IIRC. A lot of that money is going into Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac bonds.....and these institutions may be technically insolvent. The US has to back them, it has little choice. But it will be much harder to arrange a soft landing for the US housing bubble for the world economy than the Asian bubble of '98. The fall of the dollar has been orderly.....but unless the trade imbalance fades with the dollar, there is a risk of a "run on the bank." The real question for me is what happens with China if/when US purchases from China start to fall. Last year the US had a quarter trillion dollar trade imbalance with China...we imported 321 billion and sold 61 billion. I personally lost a chance at a lucrative contract when the Chinese communist ordered the Chinese oilfield service company to develop everything in house. This can't go on forever, and I'm not certain if China can maintain 10%+ economic growth without this type of arrangement. The only real answer will be to watch. And even then, folks will argue for years afterwards as to the true cause of this and that. Dan M. BTW, I'm not really arguing with you; I'm 90% in your corner in this discussion....I just have some worries about short and mid term problems. In the long term, the continued improvement in productivity will facilitate economic growth.....but we could have a few rather unpleasant years. It's really unfortunate that Brad isn't an active member.....he could add a lot to this type of discussion. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
