| I think Friedman's piece shows a lack of perspective. There are a bunch of specific facts he states that are accurate but misleading (for example the whole "buy GM with 3 days of production, at $200/barrel prices, when Saudi wouldn't have $200 per barrel sold to buy things, and much more importantly when most of GM's enterprise value is debt, not market cap, and of course that while GM may be prominent its a tiny part of America's economy), but I won't focus on such response to details, because the real weakness is the larger picture. To the extent global power is shifting against the US, its doing so very slowly if at all. In economic terms the US has had just over 20 percent of the worlds gross production for decades. In military terms, there isn't even a close 2nd place. If you go out in to the very long run, say a century or more, rather than a few years or a couple of decades, well than sure the US could be a much smaller factor in the world, but that far out just about anything could happen. |
