To conclude then, I don\’t think the current relatively mild downturns in the US and UK can be considered a vindication of the anglo-saxon model.
That is, that there are economies with decent structures should not be taken as a vindication of that structure.
Hmmm.
Prompts me to voice a feeling I have had for a week or two.
That maybe when the economic history of the era is written, it might be concluded that the real wealth was actually being created in the USA and Britain, and the rest of the world merely redistributed it to themselves, highly efficiently.
And when the Anglosphere stops doing the wealth-creating, the world slows down.
The effect being magnified by Anglo currencies being over-valued, so that imports were sucked in.
The fall in currency values then emphasised the original fall in demand.
Certainly true of China; high volume of exports, slight value added, now in rapid retreat.
But they have a base for the next wave, when they will have learned the lesson.
Or am I completely wrong?
It seems rater incomplete. What do you mean ‘real wealth’ created.
Also, I know people seem to have forgotten this already, but the UK and US’s Q4 GDP figures whilst better than some countries were worse than many others, it’s not as if they outperformed the rest of the world as many seem to think. Brown deserves lots of credit, but not as much as some seem to think.
Sure it’s incomplete.
And the explanation might well be that the Anglosphere borrowed more from the future, causing an unmerited boom.
The effect is that of a man deciding to pay off his credit cards, so causing the local restaurants and travel agent to suffer a fall in sales.
And Brown deserves no credit whatsoever.