Recent newspaper reports have indicated a certain shift beginning to take place in the world's economic balance of power. For instance, according to The Guardian, "The recent flow of news around the world suggests that the balance of world economic power may finally be swinging away from the United States—the powerhouse of the past decade or more—towards Japan and Europe, which have lagged behind for many years." China and India are also growing economically at breakneck speed.

Also a recent report from the European Commission stated that Europe was finally beginning to catch up with growth and productivity rates in the United States. The growth rate in Europe has been buoyed up by a resurgent German economy, which had been long arrested by difficult problems with the reunification of West and East Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

One observer stated, "For years we Germans have seen the glass as half-empty; now at long last, it is half full"—reflecting a positive change in German attitudes. (Source: The Guardian [London].)