Barack Obama's poor economic policies are playing into China's hands, page 1

Not only are we witnessing the first asset-based downturn in America since the Great Depression, with house prices still 20pc to 25pc down and negative equity in abundance, there is also a palpable sense here that, when it comes to the economy, America isn't being led effectively. President Barack Obama's economics team, including Larry Summers and Christina Romer, which was supposed to deliver robust recovery, has been dismantled. While fears of a double-dip recession may be no more than the usual jitters during a mid-cycle slowdown, there is little confidence that President Obama can bring Americans together again in the political centre to deliver the right policies to get the domestic economy on a firmer footing.

But whether it's planning restrictions, land use restrictions, tax burdens or rules and regulations, there is a governance gap in the US, as in other Western economies, which is holding back growth. The poor leadership and economic policies of the Obama administration are forcing the domestic economy to compete with one hand tied behind its back. Not a great way of encouraging those mountains of cash to be invested in job creation. That governance gap is being arbitraged by the likes of China, and its emerging market counterparts, which simply get on with growth under orchestrated and highly directed economic and industrial policies. Instead of the West's democratic advantage being allowed to show its creative strengths, it is throwing up obstacles to re-establishing the economic credentials of countries such as America. That mismanagement is what the increasingly vocal protests here, including the Tea Party movement, are getting so cross about.

Barack Obama's poor economic policies are playing into China's hands