Exuberant Brazil

The economy is growing fast.

For the past 18 months or so, the UK has had Europe s fastest growing economy, and at times has even outpaced the United States.

Beginning with Japan, every rapidly growing East Asian economy sustained investment rates in the range of 38 40 of GDP over its rapid growth phase.

The price their countries pay is a more sclerotic and slowly growing economy.

A fast rising Asia has, moreover, become the fulcrum of global geopolitical change.

Indeed, Islam s increasing military prowess helped it to spread rapidly around the world.

The economy has grown rapidly, inequality is declining, and innovation is on the rise.

A growing audience

An evolving threat

India's economy is growing almost as fast as China's, with a similar increase in inequality and, to some extent, corruption.

Certainly, China, India, and some other emerging countries are developing fast.

First, there is Tibet, where apparently the local economy has been growing fast.

Even China s highly lucrative and fast growing trade with India has not curbed its rising territorial assertiveness.

South Korea s Growing Soft Power

So here is a nine year old boxer named Milo who had a very aggressive tumor called a malignant neurofibroma growing on his shoulder.

As with the Bretton Woods system, a peripheral economy (for example, China) could grow very rapidly even as the anchor economy (the US) enjoyed cheap financing.

While China s economy is growing very rapidly, Japan is still struggling.

Attracted by the promise of membership, the countries that joined the EU last year underwent 15 years of social, economic, legal, and political changes whose scope was unprecedented in modern European history.

Public institutions were rapidly modernized, political democracy adopted, and a standard market economy created.

But there is growing opposition to such moves.

There is also a growing danger of homegrown terrorism.

If the economy grows rapidly, there will be no problem if it does not, a pension crisis looms.

The British economy is now growing fast by current European standards, so 2 of GDP is becoming a larger sum.

Against that background, China s growing assertiveness may not surprise many.

Indonesia is in ruins, while Argentina is rapidly ceasing to be a first world country.

The economy .

Europe s growing cocaine problem is due to several factors.

There is an even greater silent force which may produce a new generation of political leaders the rapidly growing army of Christian believers, now estimated at 20 million.

But rising CO2 emissions constitute what is really happening on the ground a rapidly growing industrial base in emerging markets is being hard wired to intensive use of coal.

India s democracy and burgeoning economy make it a major factor in the Asian balance of power, and the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai underscore a shared struggle against violent Islamic extremism.

The high and rising price of oil does, however, contribute to the decline of the dollar, because the increasing cost of oil imports widens the United States trade deficit.

But faster growing East Asia has experienced significantly greater progress, with the poverty rate falling from 77 to 14 over the same period.

A People s Economics

Identity Economics

Depression Economics

The Economics of Happiness

The Economy of Fear

The Two Faced Economy

The Economics of Inclusion

Aggregate economy.

The Japanese economy

So the growing power of today s China naturally raises legitimate concerns.

Today s emerging intifada demonstrates the profound danger implied by this approach.

Phelps economics remains one of action, not resignation.