Keith Hart on Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:33:16 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> Is the US declining too fast? |
Hi Felix, Thanks for the tip on Leonard's book. I recall reading about the replacement of the USA by Germany and Japan in the 80s (Paul Kennedy's blockbuster, remember him?). There are other perspectives on our moment in history than the one about America's inevitable and precipitous decline. The first is that the implosion and restructuring of the financial institutions there is more radical than could be contemplated anywhere else and that its impact on the real economy has been less than expected. The prospects for the latter have been greatly improved by the dollar's devaluation; and exports, particularly of internet-related products, where the US is still world leader, are rising strongly. The US took a big hit on housing and finance earlier than elsewhere and might already have absorbed the worst of it. In any case, Paulson has on consecutive Sundays ordered the biggest bail out ever and allowed a major bank to go bust with unknowable repercussions for the rest. You can read that is weak or strong. My bet is that the US economy has the best chance of recovering storngly from this crisis. That was the conclusion of the OECD only last week when they revised their growth forecast for the US. And before the latest dip, the dollar improved dramatically against the euro. I recommend the Times' economics writer, Anatole Kaletsky, whose latest effort in the wake of the Lehman Bros crisis today is fairly typical of his line: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article4753649.ece In Europe, Britain, Ireland and Spain have been going the same way as the US but with a time lag; and the Eurozone in general has not yet felt the full brunt of the crisis. The euro has not had to survive a massive downturn before and, when it does, the institutional rigidity of the single currency and the political paralysis of EU institutions will constitute severe handicaps. On the triviality of the coverage of the US election, try this two-minute video by Michael Tomasky: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/michaeltomasky/video/2008/sep/11/uselections2008.usa Here he argues that the two sides are not just in a war between forces for change and the forces of reaction, but that their political methods are similarly placed between the old and the new society: one trying to manipulate the TV news, the other trying to mobilise from the ground up. The announcement that Obama raised $66 millions in August, as opposed to the $84 millions McCain got from the Fed for the whole campaign shows the stakes of this war between methods and social visions. The rest of the world knows the consequences of a victory for either side. Whatever you believe in, Felix, and I think I have a clue, this US election is its main global battleground. I can't think of anything going on in Europe that matters remotely as much, nor in China or Russia, for that matter. Reports of America's demise will once more be premature. And yes, my money is on Obama, to win by a landslde of 1964 proportions, because, in whatver light this campaign is being reported, 80% of Americans want something better than they have had and they have already lost a lot in the way of houses, jobs, income equality, education, health and the costs of war. People who think they would vote in a doddering curmudgeon and an untried icon of the religious right prefer their Americans to be stupid and bellicose. I take a more Tocquevillean view. Keith -- Prof. Keith Hart www.thememorybank.co.uk 135 rue du Faubourg Poissonniere 75009 Paris, France Cell: +33684797365 # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org