US economic decline forges new world order

The crisis is redrawing the world map of economic power as the
influence of US consumer spending declines and major emerging
markets like China and India take the lead, finance chiefs said. "One
of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed
economic power relations," World Bank president Robert Zoellick said
Friday in Istanbul ahead of annual meetings of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. "Recent forecasts show that China and
India are helping to pull the global economy out of recession.... A
multipolar economy less reliant on the US consumer will be a more
stable world economy," he added. Consumer spending accounts for around
two- thirds of economic activity in the United States -- by far the
world's biggest economy -- and experts say lower spending could have
radical effects on the US's world standing. The IMF on Thursday
forecast emerging and developing economies would grow 5.1 percent in
2010 -- in contrast with just 1.3 percent in advanced economies.