America's Number One Export

In school we were taught that America's number one export was their culture. Through the TV commercials, Nike shoes, the Coca Cola culture, NASCAR, and more recently the infiltration of Apple devices to be added to that list.

I however think it's time that this notion be updated as there is serious competition regarding items of export, mainly democracy, debt, or even denial. The US military budget is the largest in the world topping a trillion, with the foreign policy mandate of bringing democracy to nations.

The other looming export is the US debt, primarily through CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) asset-backed security (ABS) and other derivatives. This number is well into the multiple trillions, an unknown amount that could be pegged at a possible 15 trillion. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that the risk of these debt obligations was exported abroad. In any event, it has created quite a mess, which leads me into the final contender of being the most exported item. That would be denial, more so, denial to the fact of how much trouble the global financial system and the potential severe affects.

In the advent of trying to quell the credit crunch, the so-called printing presses have been let loose, leading us into a period of deflation. This measure however can easily turn into deflation's ugly sibling, hyperinflation. If this were to occur, your every day prices for necessities would rise while the cost of living will decrease. This is a scary scenario that has been repeated in places such as the Weimar Republic and more recently Zimbabwe.