[jumpy]

hmm, the argument (is it really? or is everyone just passing the buck - hahaha, my little joke - like usual?) over who's country is parasitic on the world economy is missing the point?

Surely a better explanation is that the current global financial mess is a product of greedy people making their greed even greater in places that allow them to do so?
It is not just the US that does this, but most of the developed nations of the world. Any time someone in the UK states a case for stricter financial regulation of banks and markets (ostensibly to protect the ordinary bloke in the street with a low to middle income from having his savings and earnings and assets raped by the consequences of financial meltdown and the inevitable government cuts and taxation in an attempt to mitigate this) there's a whole lot of bleating about how all the financiers will take their prospective imaginary cash some place else where there's less regulation of the markets so we cannot possibly let that happen or we would loose out by not having some of their greed rubbing off on our economy...

I don't know how else to explain the way the credit crunch/housing crash and all of that stuff that happened in the US a few years ago had such a massive knock on effect on the economies of the rest of the worlds developed nations.

Everyone has been so busy patting each-other on the back, congratulating themselves on how frightfully clever they've all been by creating money out of thin air that no-one stopped to think if it was actually a good idea or not.
And because everything is linked in a global financial house of cards it only takes one to flutter in the breeze for the whole lot to come crashing down.

I don' think the US is any more or less parasitical in this respect, all developed nations share the burden and responsibility for it, and therefore the blame too. It just so happens that the US has one of the larger economies in comparison to some other countries - what difference this makes in any real terms when everyone is in on the game is rather beside the point.

The developed nations of the world have put all of their financial eggs in one basket (globalisation). This is fine when everything is running smoothly, but it's a damn stupid idea when it goes wrong.