The man who back in May wrote "Why the world is better than you think", only for the world to turn out about as bad as thought, if not much worse, Jim O'Neill, has just released the sequel to his required reading Kool Aid, "The World Is Down, But Far From Out" (is that a tacit apology for the previous title full of sound and fury?) which is currently making the rounds at all pension and mutual funds as well as all other institutions whose existence depends on the perpetuation of the illusion that the market is undervalued and that America is solvent. The latest essay provides absolutely nothing new and original in terms of though, and merely regurgitates the traditional expectation that China will rescue the world, as it continues decoupling from everyone else. We wonder if it has ever dawned on anyone that the only reason why China is so "resilient" in the face of the ongoing depression is because all of its numbers are completely made up? But that is apocryphal so we wont even ask that rhetorically, and accept at face value O'Neill projection that Chinese GDP will increase by over $7 trillion in the next 9 years, or nearly 3 times more than the US, even as both countries issue about $20 trillion in incremental debt (not bad: $2 of debt for $1 in GDP - even economists can probably figure that out). And where will this growth come from if not from the traditional driver of near-zero cost growth: low interest debt? Oh, so Jim is basically saying the world will grow arithmetically, as the credit bubble (now in its global iteration) grows semi-exponentially. Truly wonderful news.

Yet even O'Neill, in his permabullish element, finally agrees that his entire forecast is based on one and only variable coming true- the Fed's ongoing debasement of the dollar: "Over the past couple of months, as evidence has accumulated that the US economy is slowing once again, US financial conditions have not tightened. Indeed, as a result of the aggressive policies of the Federal Reserve, conditions have remained very easy. In order for our more positive underlying views of the world to bear fruit, it is important that this situation persists." Basically, the entire global growth story, decoupling included, is based on what side of the bed the chairman of the politically and special interest independent Federa Reserve wakes up on.