America and Europe: Vive la différence!

Last time round, in 1988, the doomsayers got everything right - except the name of the country. For it was the Soviet Union which collapsed while the United States went on to savor its"unipolar moment." This time it is a consumptive greenback, shrinking credit, soaring gas and two wars with no V-Day in sight in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Now let's look across the Atlantic where Europe used to strike Americans as one huge Disneyland with real castles and wondrous shopping arcades, like H&M (for the kids) and Hermès (for the Kerrys).

Today, the Manolo is on the other foot, or, more apropos, in the other shopping bag. Over the last eight years, the euro has almost doubled in value against the dollar. It used to be the Japanese who bought Fifth Avenue dry; now it is those Euro hordes and even Russians! They even come to buy their own stuff - Prada, Zara, whateva - which usually costs a lot more in Milan than in Manhattan.

So what do the Europeans have the Americans don't? Above all, more time. At home, Barack Obama could never pull in 200,000 as he did in Berlin in July.