Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Globalization: Europe - The Center Of The World?

Europe is the center of the world, other regions are irrelevant! This is the message the media want   us to believe. They are excessively focussed on the old continent.  Every political action in Europe dominates the headlines in the media and influences the stock markets in U.S. and Asia.

This Eurocentric picture of the world fit to the 17th century, when Europe indeed ruled the globe and possessed most of the world`s wealth. But the obsession with Europe doesn`t fit to the reality of 2012. We have still the Sistine Chapel and the Cologne Cathedral, but we don`t dominate the world any more. The Eurocentric picture ignores the huge and growing economies in America & Asia.

The recent economic news from U.S., including rising retail sales and an improving labor market,  show that the American economy is now getting stronger - instead of the European mess. The data show that Europe isn`t big and important enough to slow the U.S. economy down. And the other engines of the global economy are running too, including China, other emerging markets (Turkey, Mexico) and the former Sovjet-empire (Russia, Ukraine). The (economic) world is now too big and too dynamic to be seriously endangered by a small group of countries.

The strength of the economies in U.S., Latin America and Asia should also contribute to the healing of Europe. At least the German economy, which is focused on exports, should benefit from the ongoing growth of the global economy. In turn a stronger Germany could stabilize the ailing rest of Europe.

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