Wall Street, Main Street, or sideshow?

SO, CONGRESS FINALLY PASSED the controversial US$ 700 billion financial package to rescue not just the United States' financial system from collapse but also - apparently - the international financial system from tanking. Let's be clear about one thing: the US financial system is witnessing the mother-of-all collapses. The mess that is burying Wall Street, and taking Main Street down the gurgler too, is real. Too real.

But the impact of the US financial system's breakdown on the international financial system is - probably - just as real. Why? Regardless of whatever pundits may say about the bigness of the Chinese economy, or India's, or the combined growth of the Asian economies, for the world economy as its saviors, all - every one of them, individually - remain incredibly dependent on the US market for their export revenue and credit, or financing, and, therefore, their debt.

Because, in case you haven't quite fathomed all this growth mantra from the 1980s, from one corner of the world to the other, the US economy, really, is no different from any of the Asian economies. All of these economies were built on sand. And after the late nineties Asian financial crisis, Asian governments continued to build their economies on sand …