The U.S. Debt Crisis Has Completely Punctured the "American Bubble"

On Aug. 2, U.S. President Obama signed the bill approved by both the Senate and House to cut government expenses and increase the U.S. debt’s upper limit. The United States finally survived the “bomb game” before the due date in front of the global crowd. People around the world, including Americans, know that the U.S. debt is a super bomb: Once it explodes, the whole world will suffer. Therefore, Americans reached an agreement just like before, when there was no suspense. However, this year’s situation is much more dangerous as the two parties of the U.S. Congress fought violently, scaring countries all over the world into a cold sweat. What if the United States violates the agreement? What can the world do?

Will such a dangerous thing happen? Nothing is impossible, especially for the United States. After all, this time the alarm lifted temporarily and the threat of the exploding U.S. debt still exists, which could happen at any time. In other words, the United States may violate the agreement at any time; the world economy may sink into disaster at any time, and the possibilities are increasing. Such estimation is based on the terrible behavior of the U.S. government, the Congress and the political parties and more importantly, on the fact that the U.S. economy and political system are completely bankrupt.

For a long time, the United States has been recognized as the world’s foremost power: economically developed, strong national defense, a superior system — and Americans are proud of it. However, the fact today is that the United States is the world’s largest debtor, that domestic and foreign debts are an enormous figure and that the U.S. has no ability to pay them off, which means the country is actually sinking into economic bankruptcy. At the same time that they struggle to survive long-term heavy debt, Americans still puff themselves up to their own cost, using the financial hegemony built up in international currency reserves years ago to overdraft its national credit continuously. Lifting the debt’s upper limit once every eight or nine months is nothing more than seeking temporary relief regardless of the consequences. The United States seems to be addicted to it, which is probably incurable. A country that has been in disease beyond cure but still brags about its strength is just putting up a bold front; in talking about its advanced economic system, it is deceiving itself as well as others.

In its political aspect, America’s behavior is also despised by the world. This time, on the topic of the debt crisis, the Congress, the White House and relevant interest groups have escalated the war of words, which almost led to hand-to-hand combat. Surprisingly, the starting point of such political combat is neither the citizens’ interest nor the world’s interest, but the election interests of each party and partly the special interests of capital. American politics neither aims at solving practical problems of national economics and people’s livelihoods, nor seeks long-term sustainable economic development, which is quite clear to the rest of the world. The current American political system cannot solve the current economic difficulty. The system fell into an abyss of special interest and electioneering battles; the systematic drawbacks exposed it completely. How can such an irresponsible, selfish and ineffective “American democracy” be superior? How can such a system uphold universal values? It’s just fudging.

A free market and a democratic system are what the United States brags about all the time. Nevertheless, when the United States screwed up the two foundations of the country, the bubble nature of such resplendent economic and political systems was exposed completely. We can say that this time, the U.S. debt crisis totally blew up the “American bubble.” The world is alarmed, learning that buying U.S. debt means being kidnapped not only by the U.S. economy, assuming the risky results of the Treasury’s “quantitative easing,” but also by America’s domestic politics, suffering the risk brought by election politics and partisan strife. Such huge economic and political risk is too much for many countries to handle. China, as the biggest holder of the U.S. debts, should try hard to avoid such risk, seeking leeway as soon as possible.

The debt crisis revealed the ugly face under America’s strong surface. The national economic collapse, credit bankruptcy, political impotence, systematically ugly actions: All of these are the brutal results of the explosion of the “American bubble.” Although America’s real face is seen by the people, the game still goes on, and a larger crisis is building. If the United States tries hard to maintain its remaining military and financial hegemony, its “front door” will get knocked down by all of its debt.