Rapidly growing emerging economies, notably the BRIC countries, will all take hits as the US goes into recession, yes, but when you take a few points off of 10% growth rates you still have growth. If the US doesn't play its cards right (e.g. if we turn away from globalization), we could be flat-lined like Japan was for 10 years. BRIC countries, no matter how severe a hit they take (and barring revolutions, nuclear wars or something nutty in those parts of the world), are not going to be flat-lining, because you have the equivalent of entire US populations going from dirt poor to middle class in less than a generation. The global economy is not *yet* anything as "de-coupled" as was made out to be by some believers, but the *trend* and the end-point is clear- in another decade the US economy will no longer be "the" world engine of growth, but rather just another big economy. The current financial crisis and recession are also a wake-up call to the BRIC countries to accelerate de-coupling, so that too many of their investment eggs are not in the U.S. basket. De-coupling is good for the world-economy, but we're not there yet.
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