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On the ball as ever, Standard & Poor’s has come out in favour of decoupling. Their latest research ponders how the rise of Asia means the global economy is less tied to a US slowdown:

The best news continues to come from emerging markets, which are still expanding at a solid pace regardless of the significant weakness in the U.S. and the financial market turmoil. Overall, domestic demand and regional strength will be large factors in determining how other economies fare during the U.S. slump.

Developing Asia will provide the fastest growth, says S&P. Europe and Japan will outpace the US in terms of economic growth this year, for the first time since 2001.

Not that the ratings agency doesn’t have concerns, including the presence of widespread inflationary risks and record oil prices. Some looming threats grow greater by the day.

The U.S. reliance on foreign capital is a major danger point. While improving from the record current account deficit reached in 2006, the current gap is a still-high 5.4% of GDP….Now foreign investors have lost confidence in U.S. securities and the U.S. dollar, and money is not so easy to come by. If investors outside the U.S. continue to worry about the risk of a dollar decline, the result could be both a sharp drop in the dollar and a sharp rise in U.S. interest rates, extending the recession.

Nouriel Roubini, needless to say, would beg to differ on S&P’s relatively rosy conclusion. In an era of globalisation, no country is immune when the US hits the buffers.

In a recent article for Foreign Policy, the economist laid out his view of where will be hardest hit by the US recession. His brief list of winners includes importers in Europe, Japan and China and European shoppers. His list of losers includes….just about everybody.