Outlook 2008: Will the US Economy become Decoupled?

Despite a still-slumping housing market, an escalating credit crunch and spiraling inflationary pressures, the U.S. economy should still manage to advance at a 1% to 2% clip in 2008.
While investors might view that as bad news, there’s actually a positive twist, since it means that U.S. economy will likely dodge the recession that some observers have feared.
Even so, the U.S. economy won’t be in the investment spotlight in 2008, and investors will see the first signs of the "decoupling" of the U.S. market from those overseas. While the United States is narrowly dodging recession, other global economies will be advancing by as much as 10%. The emergence of a growing middle class in such key markets as China, India and Eastern Europe will make global dependence on the U.S. economy a thing of the past. With tens of millions of newly minted consumers ready to spend in China, that country could easily weather a U.S. downturn.
Even with decoupling, U.S. investors still can profit from markets abroad - regardless of what’s going on here at home…