whitesnake

The United States is the world’s best customer. It buys far more from foreign countries than it sells to them, resulting in a sizable trade deficit. It also spends more on public programs than it collects in tax revenues. And to pay for all these outlays, the U.S. must attract mountains of foreign capital each year, which essentially amounts to borrowing from foreign governments and investors. Those foreign countries don’t lend out of the goodness of their hearts; for the most part they lend because the U.S. uses that money to buy goods from them and other nations. But foreign investors cannot go on forever supporting U.S. spending. The issue is even more pressing given the fact that the U.S. dollar has been falling for more than a year, decimating returns for those foreigners who invest in U.S. bonds.
Do you think America’s falling?
This articule was interesting to say the least.

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/wo..._101541_101541

fatbrit

Yes -- but it'll rise again. Part of the normal cycle for most countries. Good article.

Manc

when a democrat is president

fatbrit

Well that'll certainly help!

Dan725

Agree completely. Somewhat worrying article that one, though.

scrubbedexpat099

I would have said otherwise, many empires have had their '10 minutes' of fame, not many have had a second.

Pigtails

When I'M president more like it!

fatbrit

Was just trying to remain optimistic, living here and all! Back to the .

scrubbedexpat099

Well the UK was certainly out of the picture by the end of the WW1, probably a fair bit sooner.

But look on the positive side, the Breweries still produce

Celtic_Angel

:scared: :scared: you've just given me chills!! :scared: :scared:

Hiro11

Interesting article. A similar one in the Economist last month made similar points. However, this:
is clearly bullshit is makes me want to look more deeply into the conclusions of this article. People love to forget that the US was about a year into a recession when Bush took office.

fatbrit

For how long do you think Bush can actually blame the previous administration for all the economic problems and still get away with it?

millymoose

Blairs managed for 8 years now!

UJ_99

So the obvious step was to institute huge tax cuts for the rich and then spend $100billion on a war we didn't have to fight....

Dan725

What Bush has done is nothing short of criminal really. Sure he had a tough time of it with Osamas gang crashing into the towers and pentagon and had to do Afghanistan - but the whole Iraq thing is a debt vortex, and 100% unnessecary.

His home policies are no better either - typical tactic for him, tax cuts to please the not so clever, and harping on about religion, and so they vote for him - but a bit more in depth inspection and you see the only winners are the super rich - who can't possibly be religious otherwise they'd donate to charity a lot more and decry the war.

Time will tell - in addition to perhaps starting a percursor for WW3 by stirring up the hornets nest in the middle east, Bush has managed to wreck the economy.

America falling? Bloody will be if this buffoon of a president carries on the way he's been going.