It's Really a Global Crisis (Advanced)

One of my favorite columnist for Newsweek is Robert J. Samuelson.

He wrote an article titled, "It's Really a Global Crisis".  

He says that even if the stimulus plan that President Obama proposed works, 

the problem lies not within but outside of the U.S.   

For a long time, the global economy functioned with the U.S. buying the goods that its Asian partners produced.  The U.S. spent while Asia saved their money .  However, due to the downturn in the economy, Americans are saving more and spending less.   This disrupts the old import-export model that trading was based on.

What needs to happen, according to Samuelson, is a transformation in the old trading pattern.   

"As Americans save more of their incomes, Asians should save less and spend more, so that they rely more on satisfying their own wants to generate jobs and economic growth as opposed to exports.  The great trade discrepencies would shrink.  Americans would export more, import less; Asians would do the opposite"

However, Samuelson claims that this type of change can only occur if politics get involved.  

In other words, America's biggest trading partner, China has to initiate a policy that will stimulate the domestic demand.  

Therefore, Samuleson belives, "The success of Obama's policies lies, to a considerable exten, outside Obama's hands"