A quick message for the people who are predicting that China is going to rule the economic world, reducing the United States (and the rest of the world, including Japan) to lap-dog status:

Oh, shut up!

I’m not saying you’re wrong.  I’m just saying that I don’t know what’s going to happen and you don’t either.

I was around when Japan, Inc. was on a tear.  I heard the gnashing of teeth when the Japanese bought a U.S. film studio and when they bought Rockefeller Center.  I saw the cartoons about them buying the White House and carving a Japanese face on Mount Rushmore.  I read the warnings that we’d all better teach our children Japanese, because they were our next overlords.

It was a load then, and it’s a load now.

Simply taking the current direction of things and drawing a straight line toward the logical conclusion “if this goes on” is a stupid way to make economic predictions.

China may indeed be The Next Big Dog of the economic world.  But there’s nothing inevitable about it.  And I’d love to lock a few of the Chinese triumphalists in a room with a few of those who think that China will inevitably melt down into chaos and depression and see who walks out the door at the end.

For now, I will keep my eye on the intermediate-term health of the entire universe of emerging market stocks.  That’s a fact-based phenomenon I can use.  When the market is healthy, put money into it.  When it’s weak, take money out.

And for the people with big predictions about what might happen in China, Russia, Brazil or anywhere else?  How about a MUTE button?