If, as I suspect, the American consumer now enters a sustained slowdown, there will be unmistakable reverberations on U.S.-centric export flows in many major regions of the world.
The pendulum of economic power might well begin to shift from capital back to labor.
The lack of monetary discipline has become a hallmark of unfettered globalization. Central banks have failed to provide a stable underpinning to world financial markets and to an increasingly asset-dependent global economy.
To the extent that hiring in high-wage, developed economies continues to lag, the sustainability of any impetus to private consumption can be drawn into serious question.
