America’s war with Iraq justified on blatant lies about weapons of mass destruction exposed the super power’s belligerent foreign policy.

Hurricane Katrina laid bare the falsehood of America’s ‘melting-pot model’ of domestic social and racial cohesion. Now, the last bastion of America’s proclaimed dominance – its economic strength – is rapidly dwindling by the day as billions are wiped off the value of once formidable US corporations; thousands join the army of unemployed; and the dominant dollar teeters on the brink of catastrophic collapse.

The US is the world’s largest economy by far – worth $14 trillion per annum. GDP per capita is $46,000 per man, woman and child in America. American commercial brands like Coca-Cola and McDonalds are vast global corporations with market capitalisation greater than the total GDP of some developing nations. The Greenback has been unassailable with the great majority of world trade conducted in dollars. America’s model of lassez faire capitalism has thus far been hailed as the most superior with nations around the globe looking to emulate it.

The events of the last few months have shown just what a mirage the US economic success story really is.

US economic growth has been propelled by somebody else’s money. So the largest economy in the world is also the biggest debtor or potential defaulter. As the credit market contract in the financial crisis the whole cycle of debt driving economic growth risks being dramatically unravelled.

Collapsing stock markets on Wall Street have reduced global corporations ‘worth’ billions to worthless entities overnight. This has exposed the false intrinsic ‘value’ in the share price and consequently the fragility of company market capitalisation upon which multinational corporation s like Coca-Cola have built their brand and dominance.

Like many aspects of the US economy, the dollar has little intrinsic value. It’s value is based upon the confidence others have in the strength of the US economy. If the US economy were correctly viewed as a massive potential bad debtor nation with an economy close to collapse due to the financial crisis, the ‘value’ of the dollar would plummet in much the same way as the Argentinean peso did in 1999. A ‘run on the dollar’ would ensue as countries with dollar reserves sell off their holdings. The collapse of the dollar would quickly push the US into a deep economic depression as inflation surges and economic output and employment drops.

The fragility of America’s capitalist economic so-called success story has been exposed in the current financial crisis. The US economic model is unsustainable and in great danger of collapse with huge ramifications for the rest of the world. The Islamic economic system based on real intrinsic value in currency and goods offers a real alternative to casino capitalism and warrants consideration as serious people seek alternatives.