The Reckoning ─ Debt, Democracy, and the Future of American Power

"The age of American global dominance is ending. In recent years, risky economic and foreign policies have steadily eroded the power structure in place since the Cold War. And now, staggering under a huge burden of debt, the country must make some tough choices--or watch its creditors walk away. In The Price of Decline, Michael Moran, a leading geostrategy analyst at Roubini Global Economics, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other leading institutions, explores how a variety of forces are convergingto challenge U.S. leadership--including unprecedented information technologies, the growing prosperity of countries like China, India, Brazil, and Turkey, and the diminished importance of Wall Street in the face of global markets.This shift will have serious consequences for the wider world as well. Countries that have traditionally depended on the United States for protection will have to adjust their policies to reality. Each nation will be responsible for its own human rights record, energy production, and environmental policy, and revolutions will succeed or fail unaided. Moran describes how, with a bit of political leadership, America can transition to this new world order gracefully--by managing entitlements, reigniting sustainable growth, reforming immigration policy, and breaking the poisonous deadlock in Washington. If not, he warns, the new era will arrive on its own terms and provide a nasty shock to those clinging to the 20th century"--

Michael Moran is editor-in-chief of Renaissance Insight, the thought-leadership arm of the global investment bank Renaissance Capital. Based in London and New York, Moran writes on and forecasts geopolitical and economic trends for the bank’s clients and is author of "The Reckoning" blog on Slate. Moran worked directly with renowned economist Nouriel Roubini during the 2008–2009 economic crisis, and over the past 25 years he has reported on and analyzed major events for the world’s leading intellectual and newsgathering institutions, winning numerous awards for his work on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations, the BBC, MSNBC.com, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.