From Yahoo Finance: Three cheers for Washington
In case you haven’t noticed, we are in another one of those America-stands-alone moments, at least in terms of our economic strength, (notwithstanding a weakish jobs report for March.) I say moments because it won’t last forever. It’s a state that always comes and goes. But compared to where we were? What a difference seven-and-a-half years makes!
Yet again, smart people save the day; libs lose.
At the depth of the financial problem, the left was ebullient at the prospect of America and its elite going down the tubes – but it didn’t, thanks to pro-growth, efficacious policy, such as TARP, that smothered those leftist dreams of a post-America world. Instead, the rest of the world (except China) went down the tubes, in what has been a rise of the West and a decline of the rest. The cognitive and financial elite have only become more powerful and influential, as signified by the Nasdaq revising 5000 (despite the left predicting in the early 2000’s that Nasdaq 5000 would never happen again in our lifetimes) and the unending, interminable web 2.0 & Silicon Valley real estate ‘bubble’ that leaves the left in fits for its refusal to pop. America’s pillars of economic, cultural and institutional dominance have also been strengthened in the post-2008 world, too. America’s most prestigious, selective institutions of higher learning and intellectualism, the Ivy Leagues, Caltech, and MIT, are meccas of innovation and talent, drawing applications from high-IQ students the world over. Same for America’s most envied, admired tech companies such as Google Facebook, and Snapchat. Google gets over three million job applications a year, but only accepts 7,000. Fed policy has been a success, so much so that the European Central Bank has launched their own QE. US stocks keep going; the S&P 500 is now 200% from it’s March 2009 lows, but fundamentals, not QE, is what is mostly driving this rally. The rest of the world, however, has had much more sluggish stock market performance since 2009. And much more sluggish inflation-adjusted economic growth. Compared to other G-8 nations, America is kicking ass:
Now Russia finds itself in a situation of low growth and high inflation (stagflation), joining the ranks of economic losers like Latin America, Australia, and Turkey. America and China, unlike some of those primitive countries, doesn’t depend on oil for its growth; we have high-tech and intellectual property, which is not subject to the whims of macro fluctuations. And we have reserve currency status.
Related:
The System Worked: How the World Stopped Another Great Depression