If the rest of the world becomes less able or willing to finance American lifestyles…?

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/Total%20Top%203%20Purchases.jpg

 

If a government increases debt while the rest of the world’s purchasing needs fall, should interest rates competitively rise to attract investment?

 

Little by little, business is enlarged with easy money.

 

With the exhaustless reservoir

of the Government of the United States furnishing easy money,

the sales increase, the businesses enlarge,

more new enterprises are started,

the spirit of optimism pervades the community.

 

Everyone is making money, everyone is growing rich.

 

It goes up and up

…until finally someone whose judgment was bad,

someone whose capacity for business was small, breaks,

 and as he falls,

he hits the next brick in the row, and then another,

…and down comes the whole structure.

 

That is what happened to greater or less degree,

before the panic of 1837, of 1857, of 1873, of 1893 and of 1907.

 

Elihu Root

US Senator, Nobel Laureate