My hope is that this will go beyond Europe. The free world - advanced economies without the US - are the largest economy in the world taken together. Thirty percent ahead of the US.

I'm far from being anti-American, I'm European but travel there all the time. I probably spend about 10-20% of my time there. There's so much I appreciate in that culture. And yet, today I feel more Japanese or Taiwanese than American.

I still hope they get their act together, but we're not as weak without them as their current leadership thinks.