"I visit the USA on a regular basis, everything seems quite normal to me given that we are living in the shadow of the GFC."
I bet that if you were in England at the turn of the 2nd last century (1900) when the British Empire covered much of the world, you would never have dreamt that 20 years later, Britain would be practically bankrupt and the British Empire would be in ruins a few years after that.
Look how quickly the GFC hit all us unsuspecting punters - in a matter if days huge corporations failed and the world economy came very close to collapse.
The Americans are experts in window-dressing and it just needs one small voice for everyone to realize that the Emperor is in fact not wearing any clothes!
