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No, we certainly aren’t. Only the Big 3 are truly loaded.</p>
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At the risk of going off-tangent, the so-called “Joke” economy is still the richest in the world, richer in per-capita save for the tiny anomalies like Liechtenstein and Iceland (whoops, scratch that last one), I could go on…</p>
<p>The less polemical, as well as more interesting answer, however, is to consider that between the US and other countries (appropriately, countries like Germany and Japan) there is a portion of the trade relationship that is not directly economic–namely that the US underwrites the national defense of Europe and Japan, and also spends gobs of money on a global blue-water Navy that makes global trade (the lifeblood of Germany and Japan’s export-oriented economies) possible.</p>
<p>Now wasn’t that more interesting than just pronouncing something to be “a joke?”</p>