Eamonn Fingleton has a new book coming out entitled In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony.That reminded me that about a dozen years ago, I saw Walt Disney's 1934 Silly Symphony musical cartoon short "The Grasshopper and the Ants." Even though Disney came up with a happy ending for Aesop's fable—when winter comes, the hardworking ants take in the profligate fiddle-playing grasshopper and let him be their Musician-in-Residence—it's stuck in my head ever since as a dismaying allegory for the mid-21st Century economy.

The 8-minute cartoon is now on Youtube and it's only gotten more relevant for Americans this month: What are all us grasshoppers who aren't star entertainers going to do for a living in the coming globalized world?