I suggest checking out this sobering IHT op-ed from economist Stephen Roach, who’s now at Yale after having been non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.
HONG KONG — What a contrast! After three years living in Asia, I returned to the United States a couple of months ago, with enormous respect for how Asia has pulled itself together after its own devastating crisis in the late 1990s. Now I was back.
Bouncing back and forth only deepened my conviction that an important shift in the gravity of global economic power from the West to the East could well be at hand.
It’s not just the Asian miracle that reinforces my belief in such a possibility. America has lost its way. In the years I was away, it has become a very different place. The despair of chronically high joblessness is sapping the nation’s sense of self and poisoning the political debate.
(Emphasis mine.)
Roach points to problems in the U.S. such as rising unemployment rates and an overarching sense of entitlement. Meanwhile, Roach says, Asian governments have focused their policies on encouraging stability following the region’s own economic hardships.
Worth a read.
(Via D.)