Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
Some other place I read an article (and can not remember where it was), but he said some countries were trying to figure out how to really use this situation to their advantage against the US in way that hurts us permantley without going to War.
Unless they invest in our economy at this opportune time, I suspect that other countries are going to emerge from this more battered than we will. We're the folks who buy their stuff, borrow their money, deter people from invading them, and provide a useful bogeyman to distract their people. Suddenly OPEC countries have had their petrol-dollar spigot turned off. China is trying to get their own people to buy their stuff because we're not able to anymore and they're snatching up our low-interest treasuries (thanks for the cheap loans, Hu). Europe is enduring the same pain that we are and their less dynamic economy will not likely recover as quickly.

If I were a country with a large sovereign wealth fund, I'd being going long on the US economy now, taking advantage of this moment to be the hero who rides into town with a sack full of money and buys everything up at historical lows and then, ten years from now, cashes out at a hefty profit. I don't think people are going to be concerned about SWF's if they are injecting a lot of badly needed capital into our system and it has a stabilizing effect. If they want to play some other game (what are they going to do - destabilize the economy even more?), there will be a large opportunity cost that will probably pale in comparison to any benefit that they enjoy or pain that we suffer as a result of it. But I'm all ears if someone can think of something.