Milligan: Is the US losing its influence?

This has not been a good year for President Obama. His opinion poll ratings have fallen as worries about entrenched unemployment have risen.

This has not been a good year for the US government. In August, Standard & Poor’s cut the USA’s credit rating from AAA for the first time in its history. This has not been a good year for the US economy. It continues to show a remarkably weak recovery from the Great Financial Crisis compared with past history. Political commentators and global investors alike are beginning to ask: ‘Is the US losing its influence?’ Is the pressure of being the world’s largest economy, the financial super-power, becoming too much? Our answer to such a question would be simple: yes, the US is losing i...