"If a country's great-power status is underpinned, essentially, by its economic and financial muscle, then the present credit-market crisis cannot be anything other than detrimental . . . One can only admire Senators McCain and Obama for their courage (or worry at their lack of imagination) for actively desiring to get into a White House so full of broken China."

    Paul Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, in his article, "Unintended Consequences of Market Tsunami," Khaleej Times (United Arab Emirates), October 10, 2008.