Now America faces not-so-friendly fire from the rest of the financial world

I’m back, as Arnold Schwarzenegger famously declared in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In fact I haven’t really been away, just hovering in cyberspace to leave room for other contributors in our slimmed-down-for-the-beach summer Business section.

I’m back, as Arnold Schwarzenegger famously declared in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. In fact I haven’t really been away, just hovering in cyberspace to leave room for other contributors in our slimmed-down-for-the-beach summer Business section. While I’ve been up there, financial markets have begun to look like a Los Angeles freeway visited by an enemy android at the wheel of a runaway fire truck. But the idea of an Arnie-sized American superhero capable of defending the free world against the forces of chaos, in stock markets or anywhere else, now looks more tainted than ever. During and after most of the downturns and market falls of recent decades, it was conventional to praise the remarkable recovery powers of the US economy and its ability to drag the rest of the world out of trouble.