America In Recession

The United States has already conceded it's title as the world's most powerful nation. Of course, it still has the World's most technically advanced military, most martial firepower and the largest and most capable nuclear arsenal. It still has the World's reigning currency, highest volume of wealthy people in the world and largest GDP (excluding the European Union).^{[1], [2], [3]}

Waning Superiority
The military superiority is a bit misleading because it hinges on America's ability to both finance and fuel the technologies. The massive energy and cost requirements of the U.S. military are becoming increasingly reliant on foreign oil and foreign debt. Even economic superiority is decreasing because of huge deficits and debt. Economic debt is, in principle, no different from social debt: an obligation requiring future reparation (usually with interest). In the decades immediately following the first two World wars, the United States was the lender, mostly to European countries in ruin, giving it unprecedented power as a recipient of Europe's future financial obligations. The United States did had large debts of its own at the time, but the debt holders were largely domestic, leaving its own citizens in control of its own destiny. In 1988, about 13% of the government debt was foreign-owned.^[4]. Currently, about half of the public U.S. debt load is owned by foreign investors. This percentage is certain to rise social security, health care and other entitlements on the rise while the GDP shrinks. The president elect forecasts trillion dollar deficits "for years to come."^[5]

Iran Example (image)
China has formed a strategic alliance with Iran. The arrangement allows China to receive Iranian oil at a discount in exchange for economic support that allows Iran to circumvent UN sanctions. In the spring of 2008, China and Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution to increase sanctions on Iran in response to Iran's defiance of calls to abandon its uranium enrichment program. ^[6]

The 'Nuclear Option'
Knowing it cannot count on United Nations support, were the United States to decide to attack Iran unilaterally, Iran could plead with China to use its economic nuclear option in order to prevent such an attack. The economic nuclear option is the scenario where a large foreign owner of another nations public debt threatens to stop lending thus crashing the currency value of the indebted country and plunging it into economic ruin. The United States used this approach to help end the Suez Crisis in 1956. In short, president Eisenhower threatened to sell the U.S. reserves of British Pounds and Sterling Bonds and collapse the British Pound if they did not withdraw troops from the region. This tactic coupled with other pressures forced Britain to withdraw it's troops from the region and is regarded by historians as an egregious point in the decline of the British Empire.

Precarious Positions
Tactics such as the 'nuclear option' are not without significant economic risk to the powers considering it's use however. An estimated 70% of China's currency reserves are held in the U.S. dollar (the administration does not make these figures public).^[7] Trying to convert (sell) large amounts of these holdings will inevitably cause the U.S. dollar to fall, leading to a write-down of their remaining domestic currency reserves. Instead, they will likely try to divest these holdings over a period of years or decades, leading to a gradual decline in the value of the greenback rather than a violent plunge. China, India and other emerging economies are also in the rather undesirable position of having large populations but limited domestic resources. The world simply does not have enough natural resources to bring the average standard of living up to the same average level of the wealthy western nations. One of the reasons America was able to become so prosperous was that the country was awash in natural resources: coal, oil, water, minerals and fertile agricultural land. Now that those resources have mostly been exploited domestically, America has tried to create a knowledge-based economy without conceding any reduction in annual economic growth. I think the current economic environment is a reflection of the reality that the global economy was supersaturated with overpaid knowledge-based employees and thus became reliant on inflation and artificial Madoff money to provide illusory growth. Is there really nowhere to go but down? America and the rest of the world certainly face the challenge of finding real and significant growth in a globe that appears increasingly finite. What the world needs is some good ideas on how to succeed in this feat.

You're Smarter Than You Think.
-Kent Carter

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1. International Monetary Fund Report
2. CIA World Factbook
3. World Bank Statistics (2007).
4. Final Monthly Treasury Statement, U.S. Treasury (September 30, 2008).
5. Obama Predicts Years of Deficits Over $1 Trillion, Washington Post (January 7, 2009).
6. Russia, China block UN resolution on Iran; MSNBC (March 4, 2008).
7. China Losing Taste for Debt From U.S., New York Times (January 7, 2009).