First-quarter GDP was recently revised upward to 0.9 percent. I’m not going to get into how that affects the “are we or aren’t we in a recession” argument. But I want to break down the data to see where this miniscule growth is coming from.

It’s not easy for a particular country to dominate the globe. A lot of factors must be going in its favor to reach such a sovereign position. Staying on top is even harder.