There have been doomsayers for many years, predicting the imminent implosion of the US economy and consequential misery for everyone else. Yet, it has not happened.
Even so, the pessimists may have been fortified of late by figures showing that the US economy has grown in the first quarter at its slowest rate for four years.
Doubtless they would then point to the US housing slump, the possibility of the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy in the face of a worrying persistence of inflation, and the US external deficit running at an arguably unsustainable 6 per cent to 7 per cent of gross domestic product, as reasons for believing that things can only get worse.
On the other side, there are those of a more sanguine disposition, among whom one might count the International Monetary Fund, in its recent World Economic Outlook. It would argue that Europe and Japan are now growing faster than the US, so filling at least some of the gap which an American recession would create.
They would note that the substantial fall in the US dollar, mainly against European currencies (some 20 per cent against the euro and pound compared with four years ago), has failed to precipitate any significant turmoil in world finance; and that, if further depreciation is required to curb the external deficit, it may similarly occur without major financial incident.
Where does Hong Kong stand in all this? It is all to do with so-called 'decoupling' - the extent to which one economy can manage its own destiny independently of others.