"This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime,"

[Herman Munster]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134937/index.htm?section=money_latest

Just how red-hot is the current worldwide expansion? "This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime," U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson declared on a recent visit to Fortune's offices.

That may come as news to many Americans, whose boom-time memories are stuck in the 1990s, when Silicon Valley was the epicenter of our growth fantasies. But the fellow now occupying Paulson's old office at 85 Broad Street in downtown Manhattan shares that upbeat view. Just returned from a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the Middle East, Goldman Sachs (Charts, Fortune 500) CEO Lloyd Blankfein waves out toward the East River as he explains how the rise of the "BRICs" has altered his strategy and his travel schedule. (BRIC is an acronym Goldman coined in 2001 reflecting the rising economic power of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.)

"I helped make my career by being very disciplined about opening offices," he says. Yet in nine months Blankfein has announced or opened offices in São Paulo, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Qatar, and now Dubai. "We've never done anything close to that before," he marvels. "The week before Dubai, I was in Turkey, and before that, Russia and China. I'm really living the BRICs-plus-Middle East kind of life."

These days more and more CEOs are livin' la vida BRIC. GE's (Charts, Fortune 500) Jeff Immelt devotes 12 weeks a year to foreign travel and is looking for his company to grow "twice as fast outside the U.S. as inside - 12% a year, vs. 6%." Immelt expects to see even more robust growth - 20% a year - in emerging markets, which last year accounted for $30 billion of GE's nearly $170 billion in sales.

[indepat]

1. Everything is coming up roses for you and me and all Americans

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. Heard a factoid the other day that there are now more millionaires in America

then all of Europe combined. :wow: I am not one of them. :rofl:

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Indicating, perhaps, that wealth is somewhat more evenly distributed in Europe

Not that America's economy is more robust and wealth-generating.

[endarkenment]

2. And the oil to fuel this growth is coming from where?

We've reached the deadlock conflict between an economic system based on continuous growth and an ecology unable to sustain that growth. Even if the oil has not reached its limit to sustain this growth, the planet has. The tipping point for both catastrophic climate change and peak oil are here, and they feed into each other as increasing oil costs drive consumers to even more carbon intensive sources of energy.

[SoCalDem]

3. It's all a house of cards

PLASTIC cards

and as the good paying jobs dry up and the ability to "pay the minimum" goes away, it will collapse like any other house of cards..

[Herman Munster]

5. well the point of the article

is BRIC. Brazil, Russia, India, China. If you put your money in those places the last 7 years, of course you would think the economy is booming.

America is a different story.

[terisan]

7. So all the tax breaks we give these "American" businesses gives them money to invest elsewhere and

keeps us in debt to the foreign countries where they are making their big profits.

[RB TexLa]

10. There is nothing wrong with investing in those countries and there was nothing

stopping you from investing in them.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Hank Paulson, Career Highlights

He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974, working in the firm's Chicago office. He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became Managing partner of the Chicago Office in 1988. From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998;<8> eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million projected for 2006.<9> His net worth has been estimated at over $700 million.<9>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson

[Xenotime]

9. This guy doesn't know what he is talking about..

This economy is going down hard and america won't recover.

[NotGivingUp]

11. It's the "Corporate Empire"; NOT the global economy. nt

[Kip Humphrey]

12. Wall Street has uncoupled from main street and we have become largely irrelevent...

to the interests of global corporatism.