Foreign commentators have written with "ill-disguised glee" that the financial crisis spells the end of American dominance, said Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal. But don't believe it. Even before Monday's gigantic come-back, U.S. stock exchanges had weathered the downturn better than most—"when the tide laps at Gulliver's waistline, it usually means the Lilliputians are already 10 feet under."
That's not how things turned out for the Romans, said Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. They "tumbled into the trap of becoming overleveraged empire hussies," and that's exactly what we've done. Our "sand-castle economy" is washing away "under the tide of bad gambles and debts," and it's time for our "self-indulgent society" to wise up.
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