World View

The biggest threat to a full-fledged American economy remains the situation in Europe. This point was driven home by a recent survey by McKinsey & Co. consultants, which asked executives around the world two questions: Is your nation's economy in recovery? And is the world's economy as a whole in recovery?

For executives in countries other than the European Union, a full 69 percent thought their home country's economy was recovering. But for countries within the EU, only 43 percent said their country was in recovery.

That's not a big surprise, but the question about the world economy generated a more interesting answer. Only 39 percent of the executives outside the EU thought the world economy as a whole was recovering, while 60 percent of European executives thought it was recovering. Perhaps executives around the globe, no matter what country they're in, see the world outside their own borders as more powerful than it really is.