Who Will Be the Next Economic Superpower

You don’t have to dig too far into the news to find that the US is not the only country in the world to be struggling financially right now. We’re in the middle of a global economic crisis and some of our friends in Europe are actually worse off than we are.

Even now, the European Union is deciding whether another bailout of Greece will be necessary.

“The French and German banks account for roughly half of all European banks’ exposure to those euro-zone countries, meaning that the combined exposure of European banks to those four nations is over $1.8 trillion, nearly half of which is with Spain alone. Thus, in the eyes of the elites and the institutions which serve them (such as the EU and IMF), a bailout is necessary because if Greece were to default on its debt, ‘investors may question whether French and German banks could withstand the potential losses, sparking a panic that could reverberate throughout the financial system.’”

But just because they’re having a hard time, too, don’t expect the Europeans to feel like we’re all in the same boat. In fact, the vast majority of them already think we’re out of the boat, freezing to death like an ill-fated Titanic passenger. A poll released by Pew Global Attitudes reported earlier this month that the majority of people in 15 of 22 countries surveyed believe that the days of American hegemony are numbered. According to one website that reported on the poll’s results, “The sentiment was most prevalent in Western Europe, where longtime allies took a very dim view of America’s superpower status.”

The truth is, there is no way our government can continue to spend money the way it does and hope to remain an economic superpower. Hard decisions have to be made and programs that some people depend upon may have to be cut. Otherwise, the government will have to find a way to pay down this debt and it’s only option will be to increase taxes.

If politicians continue to spend money in exchange for votes and then pass the debt back onto the voter, the US taxpayer will eventually look a lot more like the European taxpayer. Instead of paying 20-40% of our income to the government, we’ll be paying 30-50% of it to the government, just like they do in Europe. If that happens, we won’t be an economic superpower anymore either.