Forget the usual threat of the US facing a “Japanese” decade of stagnation. It's already half way into a quarter century of going nowhere – if it's lucky.

The truly big stories, the ones that roll for years, changing the world, often happen while we're looking the other way or are distracted by the daily noise. So it is with the sad case of the US economy and the relative demise of the 20th century's greatest power.

It wasn't the sub-prime crisis and the subsequent GFC that flat-lined the US – it was already going nowhere but no-one noticed because the stagnation was papered over by its debt explosion.

The world's biggest economy was like an individual on a fixed income who runs up a big credit card debt buying the new car, the new boat and the flash holiday. The individual looks richer and has more stuff, but in reality is not richer and is stuffed as the interest bills mount.

The United States' debt delusion was across the board. The Economist magazine has a debt map which graphically shows that government debt is only one part of the problem. It was American households that led the credit charge, ably assisted by American financial and non-financial corporations.