The decline of the West

I just came back from Korea. Being away for a few days from the problems facing the Fed in the U.S. and the government in Portugal that have been occupying my mind had the virtue of giving me some perspective.
I already knew that the IMF had estimated a 4.5% growth in world output for next year: the highest in a couple of decades. But I just ran across the following graph from the IMF October economic outlook and it really stunned me. If a good image is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a thousand articles and books on the decline of the West (U.S., Europe and Japan) and the rise of the developing world.

I am writing a little more about this (in Portuguese) tomorrow in my column in jornal i.