The web was invented at CERN by an Englishman.

Yes, but we're the ones who put porn on it.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Yep, but US companies registered all the domain names so that if a European Company wanted to go online it had to pay for the right to use its own name.  US Companies are also starting to patent the genome - something I would have thought was everyone's birthright.  US courts consistently support US companies against "foreign" interests.  Other national jurisdictions often do the same.  But being the dominant world power gives you the ability to create an uphill playing field for everyone else.  Much of the US economic dominance was predicated on military/political dominance.  "US" interests often being defined by US multi-nationals.

Now the energy situation is re-tilting the playing pitch in favour of net energy producers and you can hear the outrage of the neo-cons that they are having to pay what somebody else decides is a fair price.  Even military intervention isn't enough to maintain that dominance any more.  

The reality is the rules will increasingly be written by others.  This is a recipe for huge and sustained international conflict unless a system of global governance can be put in place which takes the interests of all the players into account.

The EU is a model of how that can be done at a regional level.  We probably need to do it at a global level if the post WW2 era of relative peace and prosperity is not going to break down irrevocably.

"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."

I'll second thatbritguy's comment. Though there's no question that US innovation has added much to today's existence, so have other regions, just as significantly.  Hell, even MP3 comes from Deutschland.

The framing around the discussion is not accurate, however.  US institutions themselves are in serious decline, as is the infrastructure.  Japan and Europe have far more advanced phone and mobile networks, and the regional grids are not decrepit. Rail innovation, so crucial to the next generation, is also far more developed.

The US democracy is so broken as to be a joke.  Voter fraud is the most sophisticated in the world, and has a history going back two centuries.  The influence of capital in the game has reached absurd levels.  The Fourth Estate has become the world's most sophisticated propaganda network.

Where other regions really shine is in current technological innovation.  The kind of innovation which matters to the next generation's survival.  Renewable technologies, for example, are a complete product of European innovation; now even including the commercial aspects globally.  Compare that to Detroit.  Even GE's US market leading wind turbine is German, and the leading German machine in the US, Siemens, is Danish.  The rest come from Japan, Spain, India and other European entries.  Even the most capitalized US startup uses technology from the Swedish wind program.

Same with solar.

I have direct personal experience with how US courts denied obvious prior art in European technology, while the US company that "won" was bankrupt within two years.  The technology is still withheld from the US, and it is the premier technology in my field.  Justice is available to corporations and the rich, and that's it.

There's no question there's still much innovation to come from amurka, but not likely until the beast is battered and the nation is digging out from its own financial meltdown.

Amurka is a dinosaur, but it still drives the world's condition, today mostly negatively.  

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

LINUX is not from the US. The internet runs on linux boxes by and large.