You've taken some factoids from history and attached some simplistic "just so" explanations for events. The U.S. has egregious acts in its history but it's ina

You've taken some factoids from history and attached some simplistic "just so" explanations for events. The U.S. has egregious acts in its history but it's inaccurate to presume that its success is solely due to plundering the world economy. Do remember that European, African, Asian, Oceanic, and Latin American countries experienced a massive improvement in their economies post-war; how could that happen if they were haplessly at the mercy of a cruel victor's reserve currency? 1. Bretton Woods worked out to the disadvantage of the U.S. in the long term. Massive budget deficits brought on by Vietnam War borrowing and ballooning social programs, as well as trade deficits, led European countries to withdraw gold from the U.S. in order to preserve the value of their currency reserves. Leaving it was the only option to both stop the drain of gold and also to escape currency pegging so the dollar could be floated to reflect the trade deficits. 2. The reason why OPEC adopted the dollar was for maximum convertibility; at its inception, the dollar was the most circulated currency in the world. It was, at the time, the one backed by the most gold. The Euro did not exist and the Yen was not as strong or stable. 3. Resource pillaging surely occurred, but in that time period, massive improvements in domestic manufacturing, resource extraction, and agriculture accounts for the largest increase in U.S. citizens' wealth. Multinationals accounted for a small proportion of U.S. revenue. 4. The U.S. didn't "win" against the USSR despite what Mr. Reagan may told you on TV. The USSR failed economically due to a drop in oil prices due to its undiversified economy and the political impossibility of stopping social and military expenditures without upsetting Communist Party elites. The U.S. received paltry economic benefits from the Soviet unraveling. If anything, it received increased competition from suddenly available labor pools. Political advantage does not translate to economic advantage. 5. Outsourcing began long before the internet was significant. The cause of outsourcing was the improved political stability of countries with competing pools of labor and the improvement and commoditization of technology. It's convenient to adopt a zero-sum outlook on global trade, to assume that if a country does well it must be at the expense of others. However, study of history does not support this conclusion.