Colossus (67 page)

57
. I am very grateful to Deirdre McCloskey for her comments on this point. For two differing views, see Brad DeLong, “The Endgame for the U.S. Current-Account Deficit,” September 16, 2003:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/002242.htm
.

58
. Ronald McKinnon, “The Dollar Standard and Its Crisis-Prone Periphery: New Rules for the Game,” unpublished paper, Stanford University, September 9, 2002.

59
. See the discussion by Hali Edison, “Are Foreign Exchange Reserves in Asia Too High?,” in International Monetary Fund,
World Economic Outlook
, October 2003, pp. 78–92.

60
. See Edward Alden, Jeremy Grant and Victor Mallet, “Opportunity or Threat? The U.S. Struggles to Solve the Puzzle of Its Trade with China,”
Financial Times
, November 4, 2003.

61
. McKinnon and Schnabl, “China: A Stabilizing or Deflationary Influence?” and “Return to Exchange Rate Stability in East Asia?” See also Ronald McKinnon, “China and Japan, Déjà Vu?,” Stanford University, March 2, 2003.

62
. See Martin Wolf, “A Very Dangerous Game,”
Financial Times
, September 30, 2003.

CONCLUSION: LOOKING HOMEWARD

1
. Thomas Wolfe,
Look Homeward, Angel
, p.5.

2
. See Johnson, “America’s New Empire for Liberty.”

3
. For a different account of the differences, see O’Brien, “Governance of Globalization.”

4
. For a skeptical answer, see Jowitt, “Rage, Hubris and Regime Change.” See also Simes, “Reluctant Empire.”

5
. “The Price of Profligacy,”
Economist
, September 20, 2003.

6
. At the time of writing, foreign central banks’ holdings of U.S. Treasury and “quasi-governmental agency” bonds for the first time exceeded $1 trillion: Päivi Munter and Jenny Wiggins, “Treasury Holdings Top $1,000bn,”
Financial Times
, November 11, 2003.

7
. The interest rate on a fixed-rate fifteen-year mortgage rose from 4.5 percęnt to 6.4 percent between the spring and summer of 2003: “Stormy Summer,”
Economist
, August 9, 2003.

8
. “Flying on One Engine,”
Economist
, September 20, 2003.

9
. In the words of Nouriel Roubini, “Either you want the dollar to depreciate against Asian currencies or you want to maintain low interest rates. You can’t have it both ways. It just doesn’t add up”: quoted in “Gambling with the Dollar,”
Washington Post
, September 24, 2003. See also Graham Turner, “The Fed Has Not Avoided Danger,”
Financial Times
, June 30, 2003; John Plender, “On a Wing and a Prayer,”
Financial Times
, July 3, 2003.

10
. James,
End of Globalization
.

11
. Stephen Cecchetti, “America’s Job Gap Difficult to Close,”
Financial Times
, October 1, 2003.

12
. Robert Longley, “U.S. Prison Population Tops 2 Million,”
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aapris-onpop.htm.
One in twenty American men has now spent some time behind bars; for black men the ratio is one in six. If penal policy continues unchanged, more than one in ten of boys born in 2001 will go to jail at some point in their lives: “In the Can,”
Economist
, August 23, 2003.

13
. Andrew and Kanya-Forstner,
France Overseas
, p. 13.

14
. In the very apt words of Tom Friedman, “America is in an imperial role here, now. Our security and standing in the world ride on our getting Iraq right. If the Bush team has something more important to do, I’d like to know about it. Iraq can still go wrong for a hundred Iraqi reasons, but let’s make sure it’s not because America got bored, tired or distracted:” “Bored with Baghdad Already,”
New York Times
, May 18, 2003.

15
. Priest,
Mission
, p. 117.

16
. Forman et al,
United States in a Global Age
, p. 16f.

17
. Ignatieff,
Empire Lite
, p. 115. In Ignatieff’s words (p. 90): “Effective imperial power also requires controlling the subject people’s sense of time, convincing them that they will be ruled forever. The illusion of permanence was one secret of the British Empire’s long survival. Empires cannot be maintained and national interests cannot be secured over the long term by a people always looking for the exit.” This is precisely right. See also ibid., p. 113f.

18
. See, e.g., Pierre Hassner,
The United States: The Empire of Force or the Force of Empire
, Institute for Security Studies of the European Union Chaillot Paper, 54, September 2002.

19
. Quoted in Bacevich,
American Empire
, p. 243.

20
. Matthews, “Hard Part,” p. 51.

21
. Priest,
Mission
, p. 57.

22
. BMI is defined as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters, squared. Anyone with a BMI index of 30 or over is defined as obsese; anyone with a BMI over 25 is overweight.

23
.
Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002
, table 190.

24
. Figures are available from the World Health Organization for twenty countries.

25
. Though the black woman’s burden tends to be even larger in this respect. A third of African-American females are classified as obese.

26
. Ranke, “Great Powers.”

27
. Ikenberry,
After Victory
.

28
. Ferguson,
Cash Nexus
, p. 37.

29
. Ibid., p. 412 (emphasis added).

30
. Ibid., p. 388.

31
. Ibid., p. 417.

32
. Ibid., p. 418.

33
. Fischer, “Globalization and Its Challenges.”

34
. “Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Address to a Joint Session of Congress,”
New York Times
, July 17, 2003.

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