That argument has been made forcefully, most recently by Michael Mussa, formerly the IMF's chief economist and now at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

ECONOMIST: A thankless job | The

Research chief Michael Mussa told a press conference that further interest rate rises were likely to be needed in the US to slow economic growth to a sustainable level.

BBC: IMF hails world recovery

"When underlying forces are going in different directions, with the U.S. economy tending to slow and the rest of the world still pretty strong, it helps push us up at the same time it's slowing them down a little bit, " says Michael Mussa, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

NPR: Globalization Fueled Downturn; Will It Aid Recovery?