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Business Daily: The End of the American Hegemon?

16/06/2011

The End of the American Hegemon?

BBC World Service - Business Daily, The End of the American Hegemon?

Is the era of American economy and military supremacy coming to an end?

Is the era of American supremacy coming to an end? Plus how the rural poor can get electricity without increasing greenhouse gas emissions and why traffic jams can be a good thing.

The Obama administration was expecting to see first quarter growth of above 3% but, when the real numbers came in it was just 1.8%.  

That was just the beginning of a rising tide of depressing data - the biggest fall in house prices since the Great Depression, consumer spending at a six month low, weak manufacturing figures and - even more dispiriting still - just 54,000 jobs created in May - half of what was expected and a third of what was needed to lower America's 9.1% unemployment rate.   

Meanwhile - of course - China and India continue to post growth figures north of 8% a year. This divergence is leading some very senior economists to ask some very fundamental questions about America's role in the world.  

Justin Rowlatt asks Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, whether the era of American economic supremacy is at an end.

Plus, a key measure of poverty in rural areas is access to electricity yet almost one and a half billion people around the world have no electric power - 400 million of them are in India.  

Normally linking these people to the grid would mean connecting them to a polluting coal fired power station but an Indian company is pioneering a way to electrify rural areas without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. It uses the waste from agriculture - rice husks and other biomass - to generate power.  

The company, Husk Power, has now been nominated for a prestigious environmental award.  So how can you run a profitable business selling electricity to the poorest people on earth without damaging the environment?  Justin Rowlatt met Gaynesh Pandey, Husk Power's chief executive, in London. 

And finally, when are traffic jams a good thing? That's what Business Daily's regular commentator Wycliffe Muga has been considering as he explores how to spot the tell-tale signs of a growing middle class.

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