There’s no doubt the move last month by HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HBC) to embed their CEO in Hong Kong, moving him from the London office, speaks volumes as to where they see their future growth, and it’s definitely Asia.

In a report they released called  “The Tipping Point — The rise of the East and Demise of the West,” company economists explained the rational behind the move, which we’ll get to in a moment.

I’m not sure exactly why this continues to be news, as there’s been no doubt for a number of years this is where the economic growth is going to be, but a lot of people, politicians and businesses from the west have played lets pretend, making it look like there’s some doubt as to this assured outcome.

Some of also made it look like this is all just a fad which everyone is flocking toward like businesses are prone to do, but this is far from a fad, it’s a long term trend that won’t dissipate any time soon.

What’s driving this trend is the growing middle classes in China and India, and to a lesser degree in smaller, surrounding countries. Brazil also plays an important but smaller role in this arena, and Asia is by far the biggest growth area in the world for now, and many years into the future.

According to the HSBC Holding report, “The Tipping Point — The rise of the East and Demise of the West,” it rightly points out that emerging markets will be the dominant economic forces going forward, and the major reason they say is because of the enormous debt load taken up by existing western economic powers, which will have a strong detrimental impact on financing, which in the view of HSBC, will continue to keep the economic growth of the west very slow; even when real recovery does come.

Another element included in the report is if lower interest rates continue for some time, that will also target emerging markets, which will help even more with their growth, as cash looks for a place to invest in and grow.

Western countries and markets will also have to look at the exit strategies from their misguided banking and other business bailouts, which will keep them focused on how to pay it back, keep inflation down and attempt to convince voters to allow tax increases, which in the case of the Obama administration, was promised not to happen.

So with these issues on their plates, growth is being placed on the backburner and is being replaced with damage control, which isn’t conducive to strong economics.

Those in America will continue to pay for the financial sins of the Federal Reserve, lawmakers and the Treasury Department for the rest of our lives because they refused to allow the markets to clean themselves out, and had to make a show by interfering as the government “gods” they’ve positioned themselves to be.
 
Emerging markets get the benefit of all of this, and will probably grow quicker than they would have if things would have been left alone. Of course they will have to be careful not to make the same mistakes America and rest of the west have or they’ll be facing similar circumstances.