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11 Nov 2008 09:57 am

The New World

Fareed Zakaria advises Obama:

The world we are living in now is very different from even a decade ago. Next year, for the first time in history, the world's emerging economies will provide 100 percent of global economic growth. And for several more years, the world's richest countries will be mired in recession and burdened by debt. Many large emerging-market countries, on the other hand, will grow at 4, 5, and 6 percent a year.

Some will have hundreds of billions of dollars of surpluses. China just announced a stimulus package equivalent to about $586 billion, which is almost 15 percent of its gross domestic product and roughly 10 times as large (in proportionate terms) as the proposed U.S. package.

In such a world, Americans seem to understand that bloviating about "USA as Number One" is cheap rhetoric, divorced from the real world. They sense that the real challenge for Washington is not to boast about America's might but to use its capacities -- military, political, intellectual -- to work with others to create a more stable, peaceful and prosperous world in which American interests and ideals will be secure.

Barack Obama keeps being advised (warned) by conservatives to govern from the center. But he should look at this new world, not failed Republican ideology, to find that center.

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