Global Political Economy QOTD

Yglesias:

Whatever else [austerity] does, it should certainly succeed in persuading European governments that stockpiling foreign exchange isn’t just for Asians anymore. If the world succeeds in coming out through the other side of this crisis, you should expect to see even more countries joining the perpetual surplus brigades leading to even more demand for safe dollar denominated financial assets. That, in turn, means either big U.S. budget deficits or else some bold new innovations in financial engineering to meet the demand.

The rest of the post is well worth reading. I'm not sure this is the right way to think about the next 10 years, but it's certainly one way to do it. And it's a scary way to do it, since we don't seem to be good at channeling the global savings glut into productive uses.