The End of Arrogance - America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role

THE END OF ARROGANCE

America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role

Notes- -

The basic idea being that everyone's sick of the volatility of the deregulated American market and constantly being affected by dumb decisions on Wall Street, a lot of investors are considering pulling out of the US and eyeing London instead. Some even go as far as saying that New York is no longer the financial capital of the world, which is probably true, or will become true in the near future.

Quoting:

1- "George W. Bush, who talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror; he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president who gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention".

2- " Even before the financial crisis, there was lively debate in the United States over whether the world's largest economy could become overtaxed in the long run as a result of its international obligations and the global deployment of its armed forces. The war in Iraq costs the country $3 billion a week. And it is already clear that Bush's successor will find his powers in the White House further limited by the enormous mountain of debt he inherits. And then there are the costs of the financial crisis -- and the recession that will inevitably follow".

3- " Avarice and greed have always been the central values on Wall Street, but now they had become a benchmark for the real global economy. The American banking industry paid for globalization and the Internet revolution, the Asian upswing and the boom in the commodities markets".

4- " But the fact that risks do not disappear when they are distributed around the world became clear at the beginning of last year. Interest rates rose across the board and house prices came down, triggering a chain reaction with collateral damage that was bringing down ever-growing segments of the financial sector from one week to the next. Today, 18 million single-family homes and condominiums in the United States are empty. More and more Americans can no longer afford the high interest rates they are being charged. Many consumers have even been forced to bid farewell to their beloved credit cards because the banks are no longer willing to extend credit to them.

To make matters worse, because a large share of the mortgage loans are now distributed all over the world, the crisis is spreading halfway around the globe like an infectious disease. In recent years, many of the

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