Former Chairman of the Goldman Sachs Global Asset Management division,
Jim O'Neill, is puzzled by the continuing international obsession (amongst media outlets/analysts/economists) with US economic data despite dramatic changes in the global economic landscape:
“…back then the indicator [US non-farm payrolls] measured something that really
mattered in global economic terms: the state of the U.S. labor market. These
days, I wonder why anyone outside the U.S. pays that much attention.
...
For the internationally focused, it's more of a puzzle. The
world has changed. In the late 1990s, the U.S. accounted for almost 20 percent
of world imports: Through that channel, changes in the U.S. directly affected
the rest of the world -- and the U.S. labor-market data was crucial
information. In 2013, U.S. goods imports were in the vicinity of $2.3 trillion.
That's about 14 percent of U.S. gross domestic product and just more than 12
percent of world imports -- less than in the late 1990s.
China's imports now stand at a little less than $2 trillion,
some 20 percent of GDP and roughly 10 percent of world imports. Since the
recession, China's yearly imports have surged by more than $800 billion. Unless
something remarkable happens, China will soon be world’s biggest importer -- as
well as the world's biggest exporter, which it is already.”