What is the decoupling argument?
Sonders: That we can go into a recession and it doesn’t have an impact on the rest of the world, because they have their own engine and drivers of growth. Levkovich: How anyone can say “globalization” and “decoupling” in the same sentence is stunning, because they are polar opposites. Chung: I was in Asia less than a month ago talking to heads of companies, and many of them are talking about how their growth prospects are much more tied to growing domestic demand. The U.S., of course, is important. If the U.S. is half their demand, but it has been growing 1% to 2% a year, whereas the rest is again an equal portion but growing at 10% to 15%, you do the math. If the U.S. falls 10%, it’s a negative 5% drag. But if the rest grows 20%, they are still growing, albeit at slower rates. Bernstein: Two points. They both relate to what Dan said. In 2006, almost 70% of the countries around the world had accelerating GDP growth. In ’07 that falls to 42%. According to our economics group in 2008, th
