Yes, Virginia, the world is big.

Debt Ceiling: China Calls for World to Be ‘De-Americanised’

The official news agency of China, which is seen as the pretender to the world’s superpower crown, then rubbed in more salt, calling American economic pre-eminence just a seeming dominance.

“As US politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanised world,” the editorial said.

It asks why the self-declared protector of the world is sowing mayhem in the financial markets by failing to resolve political differences over key economic policy.

“… the cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonised,” the agency said.

It is not the first time Chinese leadership and newspapers have criticised Washington over a policy paralysis that threatens to devalue its dollar assets.

And unsurprisingly:

It also called for an end to the use of the US dollar as the international reserve currency, a step that would ensure the international community could maintain a safe distance from the side-effects of domestic political turmoil in the United States.

Some short bits:

Why the U.S. Government is shutdown: 5 Theories from Abroad

The shortlist:

America is insane

America is not a democracy

America is a failed state – and fat, to boot

America has a death wish

Americans hate their government

Putin and Russia:

Russians pull punches on US government shutdown – for now

Says Putin:

“American power underpins the world order as we know it, and although it’s fashionable these days to argue that the US has too much power, and does not use it wisely, we nevertheless need it. If things happen to limit its power, and call its credibility into question, that undermines global stability and makes the world much more unpredictable….  Of course the US will solve this crisis, and probably be a better country for it, but meanwhile it will consume Obama’s time and energy, and detract from his ability to fulfill his second-term agenda. That will hurt Russia, in ways that go far beyond this one lost meeting,”

A retrospective potpourri:

How the World Sees the Government Shutdown

Perhaps this shocking revelation made by the IMF this week might cause some head scratching among GOP extremists. It is pretty extraordinary and perhaps a sea-change for the rest of the world:

IMF Strongly Suggests Countries Tax the Rich to Fix Deficit

Guardian of financial orthodoxy, the International Monetary Fund, which is holding its annual meetings with the World Bank this week in the US capital, typically calls for nations in difficulty to slash public spending to reduce their deficits.

But in its Fiscal Monitor report, subtitled “Taxing Times”, the Fund advanced the idea of taxing the highest-income people and their assets to reinforce the legitimacy of spending cuts and fight against growing income inequalities.

“Scope seems to exist in many advanced economies to raise more revenue from the top of the income distribution,” the IMF wrote, noting “steep cuts” in top rates since the early 1980s.

“It’s clearly something finance ministers are interested in, it’s something that is necessary for the right balance of public finances,” said Lagarde, a former French finance minister, in a panel discussion Wednesday.

“There are lot of wasted opportunities,” she added.

It would seem the GOP dissemblers in DC didn’t get the IMF drift. Indeed, as expected, they’ve now donned sequester level spending as preferred policy.

It’s been an open secret, but congressional Democrats have long planned to quickly make a transition — as soon as the government is open and the debt ceiling is raised, Dems want to use bipartisan talks to replace the sequestration policy, or at least mitigate its effects. It’s why there’s been some debate about the calendar — House Republicans originally planned to fund the government through mid-December, while Senate Democrats pushed for mid-November. The latter doesn’t want to keep the deliberately painful sequestration policy around any longer than absolutely necessary.

And in the process, a new front in the larger fight has taken shape.

Indeed, on the Sunday shows, where Republicans dominated as they do every weekend, GOP senators eagerly championed the sequester policy that’s hurting the country by design.

And a good follow through from Benen on Paul Ryan’s maneuvering of multiple political war fronts.