If the economic setting turns gray, they are impervious to the business cycle.

FORBES: A good year for xenophobes

This raises the specter that the United States is doomed to many long, gray Japan-like years of economic twilight, with growth in the private sector being choked off through a rationing of credit so that the government and its Big Business cronies can hog low-interest credit while would-be new businesses that are the engine of job creation are left to fend for themselves.

FORBES: The Wages Of Bernanke: Winners And Losers From QE3

Mayor Vincent Gray, Victor Hoskins, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, and several other D.

FORBES: Thoughts on China

"The two dominant price drivers of European carbon are political will and economic growth, and both are questionable at present, " said Matthew Gray, carbon analyst and trader at Jeffries in London.

WSJ: Europe's Carbon Market Trips on a New Proposal

Gray was writing in the late 70s and early 1980s when the former second city of the empire was reaching its economic and social nadir.

BBC: How Glasgow conquered the art world