The Global Financial Downturn: End of US Power?

The Ugandan nihilist newspaper columnist Timothy Kalyagira believes time has come for the United States to fall off the world stage as the indifatigablle global super power. In a series of articles published in Timothy's column, the Riddle, in the Ugandan Independent daily newspaper, Daily Monitor, he argues that the pursuit for materialism coupled with breakdown in social ethos have galvarnized into the current financial melt down on Wall Street, a development that has swept across the globe and threatening to plunge the world into another "great" depression. He thinks it has dawned on America and its superpower status will be no more.

Timothy is not strange to courting controversy and making daring projections. He has previously predicted development supposedly with the help of a seer that he has visited previously. He has a knack for cynicsim and conspiracy theorizing.

But will the current crisis burry America as a superpower? I don't think so. I personally wish America could fall from grace to grass! The Americans have it within their means to salvage the situation. A similar downturn hit South East Asia in 1997/98. The countries of South East Asia withered the storm and recovered from the turmoil inspite of the spurious policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF is more "owned" the U.S than anybody else. So, if the South East Asia recovered with the "help" of IMF (read) America, ips facto, America will get out of the current crisis. But there will be serious implications for the neo-liberal orthodoxy and the lecturing given by IMF to developing countries.