I don't want to be to rude about your article NTDOC but the american have'nt gave all this cash at the time just to be kind...
At the time, the cold war was raging and everytime that an economy was going down, the communism was getting popular...
So instead risking of paying themselves a HUGE war, the US placed their money in the reconstruction of weakened countries particularly the ones near the USSR...The US never sent tons of cash to central or south america... There they simply removed governement who were too much on the left side in the politics view... Allende his the saddest example in all this. He was replaced by a dictator who killed his own people by thousands...
They "gave" their money simply to conserve their superiority and their allied intact. That's all.
Today, they are doing the same thing at a lesser extent with Russia for example.
Anyway, i DO like this philosophy. Instead of concentrating on armament to conserve the military control they put it on economy to acheive the same goal which is A LOT MORE glorious deed than war...
Oh! about Nostradanus (yes NostradaNus) 
, it seems he saw the end of the world since the last 10 years
To finish, i want to say that in a certain way, the journalist is wrong. The events of this week showed how much the US is appreciated from around the world. Everybody wants to help them in this terrible incident. Well, NTDOC as the saying goes (a french saying translated): It's when times are hard that you know who your friends are.
Well, you have a entire planet on your side...
With respect
Frédéric
