Thanks, Republicans and Teabaggers!
NY Times:...has eroded America's already diminishing aura as the world's economic haven and the sole country with the power to lead the rest of the world out of financial crisis and recession
More...from
Foreign PolicyState wire service Xinhua expressed its dismay at the potential of a default in the run-up to the final debt decisions, calling the political brinkmanship in Washington "dangerously irresponsible" in an editorial last week and noting that the "ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight."
Global Times:"The US is well-known for promoting rules and regulations to other countries, but now countries are increasingly realizing Washington can stamp all over its own rules and regulations,"
Damn. Even the much-maligned Greeks "get it":
The Greek broadsheet Ekathimerini writes that the United States today "displays all the signs of decadence that condemned all previous superpowers: Stability and prosperity allowed small groups to gather disproportionate power, and they then forced the state to serve their interests at the expense of those of society as a whole." Much like Greece, the editors write, the United States is now "paying the price of complacency."
From Spain:
"The United States is now in the same basic trap as the Old Continent," forced to enact harsh austerity measures in order to reduce the deficit, but hampering economic growth in the process. The deal "transmits the message that the policies proposed by the radical core of the Republican Party, the Tea Party, will be an obstacle for crisis management in Washington," the editors conclude.
From India:
"If routine has become Armageddon, the US cannot be counted on when the tough decisions are being made."
Then there's Britain:
"Armageddon has been averted … as long as a generation of Republican politicians feel entitled to hold a gun to the head of the credit of America to secure their political ends -- disaster will never be far away."
ouch
Guardian economic editor Larry Elliott compares the United States to a "tinpot Latin American dictatorship circa 1980" and calls it a "country where a plutocracy is firmly in control,"
