Sol Sanders Archive

1] There is a growing consensus that the U.S. economy is slowing, perhaps even going into a period of no growth [recession].

One of the urban legends that is being blown apart in this process is that the rapid economic growth in other parts of the world would compensate for any decline in the American prosperity. China and India, the new powerhouses, it was said, would compensate for the U.S. downturn. And then there was the European Union with a gross national product greater than the Americans.

Yet the failure of the vetting process for American household mortgages – and that may have a lot to do with virtual rather than real memory in the digital age – has already impacted negatively on the rest of the world’s financial system. It turns out that European banks bit into the American debtburger, almost as much as did the U.S.’ own bankers.

And what should have been a commonplace – for example, the vast increase in intra-Asian trade which was supposed to be the proof of this new economic reality – is that with China and the other growing Asian economies rigged to exports, ultimately the U.S. [and the EU], their destination, dictated the overall levels of activity. The so-called expansion of intra-Asian trade was, after all, to no small extent the interchange of components and raw material destined for these eventual exports to the wealthier areas of the world.

What’s being proved is that, if nothing else, the American economy [prosperity] is a deus ex machina, partially, at least, a creation of the rest of the world to promote development and their own wellbeing. That is why, at least for the moment, the world is willing to accept U.S. enormous paper credits to finance the American maw swallowing the rest of the world’s goods and services, thereby creating jobs and the beginnings, at least, of prosperity for those countries. [Germany, for example, the largest of the EU units, depends heavily on exports to American-financed markets not only in the U.S. but in Asia and Latin America.

2] In a great swath of the world, the frustrations – largely of the scion of a Westernized elite, not a few of them living in the West – of slow, little or no progress in the Islamic world have turned a relative few into advocates of death. They persuade others, sometimes even themselves, into believing that by simply killing those who do not share their so-called religious beliefs, they can bring about a world catastrophe out of which paradise will ensue. It’s not a new phenomenon. Nor is it unique in that as in earlier times it uses the very weapons of the society it abhors to wage war on that society.

Whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip, or railway stations in Western Europe, these advocates of terror can wield enormous power – if for no other reason than that the rest of the world worships life and wishes to stay alive to try to enjoy it. Mobilizing the resources, intellectual as well as physical, to ward off their attacks is not only expensive but time-consuming in a world with too many more attractive activities to amuse it.

3] In a weird fashion, these two currents come together just now in an electoral campaign in the U.S. to choose a new leadership. Given the first premise here, it is no wonder that only half jokingly, some foreigners have said they should have a chance to participate in the American decision. For whoever is running Washington from January 2009 would have a far disproportionate effect on the rest of the world.

But given the nature of ordinary Americans’ lives – the fact that most people have far more important things on their mind than politics, whether illness, their own financial situation, amusement, romance and family concerns – it is easy to explain how the whole process of electing leaders can be trivialized. The devil in this, as in everything, is in the details. And they often exclude what ought to be a more serious debate on the issues facing the nation – and the world.

4] Despite all the caterwauling – inside the U.S. and overseas – about American mistakes, and even villainy, for the most part leadership around the world [excluding the pariahs] is aware of this enormity of U.S. influence and power and the fact that [however often naively] Americans have tried to use it for their own and others’ betterment. Whether it is the budget of the United Nations, the use of American armed forces in international natural disasters, the private giving of thousands of. U.S. charities, the blood spilled in the destruction of bloody despots such as Sadam Hussein, the joint patrols against piracy off the coast of Somalia or in the chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca [which keeps oil flowing to Communist China], the planning for anti-missile defense of a jungled world, the U.S. is the keystone of world order such as it is.

At a moment when because of the domestic political scene, the better news from Iraq [if not Afghanistan], and the possibility of an economic malaise, the Americans are turning in on themselves even more than usual, the rest of the world might take note. Unfortunately, the world cannot pause while the Americans go through their political hijinks for another 10 months. But that will have to be the case.