Blowing East

clipped from www.tnr.com And it's not as if the Chinese system is so simple. Beijing can be intimidating, but it is also limited in its ability to coerce local regional governors. It can of course arrest corrupt officials and does on occasion in order to remind the myriad party officials throughout the country that at the end of the day, the central government rules. But day-to-day, the reality is more decentralized and messier than many realize, making the success of the party's macroeconomic policies all the more remarkable. Washington, on the other hand, is almost hopeless in its current inefficiency--whiih helps to explain the mismatch between the goals of the stimulus and the results to date. Now, America is the world's largest debtor nation, while China is looking more dynamic than ever. The tale of the two stimuli provides further evidence of which way the winds have been blowing, and the United States should be concerned that they are blowing east.