Vlad may Be Right, But I Still say "Fuck Him"

Vladimir Putin says he wants “a new architecture” for the world. What? Bauhaus? Arts and crafts? Frank Lloyd Wright? He means he is sick of U.S. hegemony. He would prefer that the world economy not be dominated by the dollar and that world politics not beunder the thumb of the Pentagon. He speaks for the Chinese, no doubt, and for the French, the Arabs...and many others. And guess what. He will get his wish.Wealth and power are migrating, from the West to the East. Growth rates are faster in the East...taxes are lower...and ‘legacy costs’ - pensions to unionized workers, for example - barely exist. Cash piles up in the hands of the Chinese, for example, at the rate of billions per week. Meanwhile, in the U.S.A, cash leaves the country on a one-way ticket. The trade deficit sucks out $2 billion per day. Theinterest on the U.S. federal debt totes to over $8 trillion, with interest payments of over $1 billion a day (much of it paid to foreigners). Just those two items alone add up to more than $1 trillion per year.But wait, you say; doesn’t the money come back to the United States - as the foreigners recycle it into U.S. Treasury bonds and other U.S. investments? Yes, much of it does. But it comes back wearing funny clothes and speaking a strange accent. It leaves as an asset - and comes back as a liability! For now, it is no longer something that makes Americans richer;instead the returned dollars are a measure of our poverty. It is as if goton the plane like an old friend - and came back a slave master. Now, wework to pay it interest and dividends. What Mr. Putin wants, Mr. Putin will get. Eventually. But not yet. Over in China, born-yesterday investors still expect prices to rise today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. The Shanghai index is on therise, again. In fact, as near as we can tell, the whole Global Bubble...the first onein world history...is still expanding. But watch out - it could explode at any minute.