11/19/09 Stockholm, Sweden – The Great Wall was built between the 5th and 16th century BC to protect China from attacks along the northern borders of its empire.
Now China’s wallet is performing a similar role in economic policy. Few tools help keep a slumping superpower and its sometimes needy requests at bay better than control over the purse strings.

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America’s exploding debt is a ticking time-bomb. No one can say for sure what might trigger a crisis and when the bomb might explode, but this much is for sure: America’s current level of borrowing is unsustainable.
America’s debt crisis is reflected both in our exploding national debt and our astounding level of borrowing from foreigners, as measured in the current account trade deficit. Every day we fail to address these problems, we increase the chances that the country will be facing an economic crisis of major proportions.