Martin Jacques in The Guardian writes of a geopolitical sea change marked for Britain by the nationalization of Northern Rock, a UK bank and in the US by the sub-prime mortgages and home repossession crisis and worldwide by major banking losses such as UBS quarterly loss of GBP5.8B.
As the ’30s marked the end of British global hegemony, does this decade mark the end of the United States’ brief reign as sole global superpower? It’s heady speculation, but another factor to consider is another disaster resulting from human folly: global climate change. How does recession connect with a growing European and North American popular experience of climatic volatility and the conviction that the situation can’t continue, while at the same time Chinese and Indian populations are just entering the consumption binge of mass marketed automobility and household energy use?
- Rob