EoW September 2013

Transatlantic cable

† Public nances are on the mend, notably at the state level. (California, scally crippled as recently as two years ago, will end 2013 in the black). With joblessness on the mend, if only gradually – and as many as 12 million currently illegal, or undocumented, immigrants coming out of the shadows – state and federal treasuries will be bolstered by increased income tax revenues, even without tax hikes. † The world’s largest internal economy is nonetheless zealously seeking ambitious trade pacts which would, if they come to fruition, generate high-skills jobs and replenish domestic treasuries. Europe regards the Comprehensive Canada-Europe Trade Agreement (CETA) now under negotiation as a framework for a similar pact with the US, which is already in talks for a Trans-Paci c Partnership among countries accounting for nearly 40 per cent of global GDP. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once asserted: “We are the indispensable nation. We stand taller. We see further into the future.” Referencing that burst of patriotic fervour, the Toronto Star’s Mr Olive wrote, more tactfully: “The time to go short on America will arrive only with exhaustion of limited public funds on elephantine statues of George Washington in America’s largest cities.” Dorothy Fabian USA Editor

corporate America. The greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency is unchallenged. Incredibly, foreign investors account for a higher percentage of US equities ownership today than at any time in the 68 years over which that con dence indicator has been measured. † The US is producing more, and more exportable, goods than ever before, with far fewer workers. Thus America leads the world in productivity; and in innovation, as well. Unmatched in playing rapid catch-up, in just three years the US has closed its once-yawning gap with a China that led the world in solar-energy technology. † Even at this low point in American economic vitality, the US has an economy (roughly $15 trillion in size) about twice that of a quickly industrialising China. Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to nominally match America’s by mid-century. But even then the gap between the two nations’ GDP per capita – the chief measure of standard of living – will see Chinese a uence continuing to trail that of Americans by a wide margin. † Also by mid-century, in the estimate of demographers, the US will have added a stunning 40 million people to its population, while most of the industrialised world shrinks or, at best, stagnates in population growth. With immigration reform, a recent study by the Center for American Progress foresees a resulting $1 trillion boost to the US economy. † Over the past four years, domestic oil and gas reserves in the US have jumped 20 per cent, greatly advancing the prospect of self-su ciency in energy. And fuel-e ciency improvements in the American vehicle eet have slowed energy-consumption growth.

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September 2013