Hong Kong stocks and India stocks rose 4 percent today in response to the Fed's half-percent rate cut yesterday. That's quite a pop -- the equal of 550 on the Dow. Japanese stocks rose almost as much. The consensus on Wall Street seems to be that the prospects for international stocks are better than for U.S. stocks. The world has been experiencing perhaps its biggest-ever spurt of economic growth. Unlike in previous decades, developing economies have current-account surpluses and gobs of foreign exchange reserves, which provide defense against the kind of currency collapses we saw in the 1990s. If the United States avoids a recession and continues buying foreign goods at a brisk pace, the global boom has a better chance of continuing.