One of the coolest talks I’ve ever seen at a conference was by a professional pickpocket named Apollo Robbins. (You can see his TED talk here.) Watching someone steal wallets, watches, and even glasses from people—on stage, in full view of everyone, and after warning the victim what was about to happen—redefined my idea of how our perceptions work.

I’m writing this in response to a comment on an earlier post about Europe, which essentially asked: Where does the U.S. fit in all this? A good question, and one that demands a further look.

Right now, the U.S. is in the process of trying to bang heads together to get a settlement between Greece (and the rest of the Southern European countries) and Germany (and the rest of the Northern European countries).

After analyzing China, Japan, Brazil, and other economic powers around the world, we come at last to the U.S. An outside view is particularly useful here. As citizens, we tend to think we know all the details, and so we're all the more likely to be caught up in an inside view.

The benefit of looking at the other countries first is that we now have some context for judging where we stand and what that might mean. 

As I mentioned yesterday, Russia’s economy basically doesn’t work without oil. Today we’ll take a deeper look at that problem, along with the potential consequences as Russia attempts to deal with it.

As I mentioned in my post about the latest employment numbers, I’ve been focusing quite a bit on all of the good things happening for the U.S. economy. But that doesn't mean I'm not paying attention to potential threats. 

Let’s take a look at a couple of economic risks the U.S. faces.

Today’s post will be a short one for two reasons. First, Commonwealth’s Massachusetts office is closed due to the snowstorm slamming New England.

Second, of course, is because my home, my family, and I are about to be crushed by the oncoming glaciers. So I hear, anyway.

Let’s take the factors we discussed yesterday and apply them to the countries that matter, starting with China.

The largest economy outside the U.S., China is approaching several challenges, the most urgent of which is the need to shift economic growth away from infrastructure and investment and toward consumption. Let’s examine the data and see what an outside view suggests for investors.

Now that we’ve determined which countries are globally relevant, from an economic point of view, we need to decide which factors really matter in how those countries will fare over the next five years.

Building on yesterday’s post, today we’ll start to look at what a global perspective means in an investment context. Of course, I know perfectly well that all countries matter; what I’m getting at in the headline is “Which countries are economically significant on a global scale?”

This week, I'm at Commonwealth’s Chairman’s Retreat in Miami, a place that quickly reminds you that the world is much bigger than the U.S. As it happens, my talk here will focus on the rest of the world—and how, exactly, the U.S. fits into it.