are we currently living under the reign of what will be known in the future as the american empire

To start with your point on world debt, the world debt is controlled and verified by the world bank, the World Bank and the IMF are both based in Washington, D.C., and work closely with each other. The Gold Room at the Mount Washington Hotel was where the IMF and World Bank were established and although many countries were represented at the Bretton Woods Conference, the United States and United Kingdom were the most powerful in attendance and dominated the negotiations. Thus can easily be argued that they are controlled by the US. So I have focussed so far on military occupation, so lets go into Americas control of other nations in other ways, so whilst its true most of todays manufacturing is being produced by china, it is being bought by America, so if the US stopped purchasing Chinese made produce and any other country for that matter Chinese manufacturing would go into disrepair and destroy Chinese economy in the same way your arguing that the power of the Chinese economy is greater than that of the Americans, also capitalism which is the stronghold of the American economy is why China is being "allowed" to be such a manufacturing power as it profits America to buy its products from China rather than to do the manufacturing of products themselves, which would actually benefit American citizens more as would create more jobs and social stability, but the fact is Chinese workers will accept lower payment and lower standards than there American counterparts again making it more profitable for the US not to manufacture produce themselves. Next I would like to point out Americas role in the UN, America established the UN in 1942, and is one of five permanent members including France, UK, China and Russia and have remained so since 1945, any of these 5 permanent countries can veto any UN resolution making it void even if the majority of the other UN countries accepted it, you must then look at the USA's role in the other 4 countries economies, governmets and status, America has large military bases in all of these other 4 countries and can be argued to control the political systems in some way. The other and probably most recognised aspect of the idea of an American empire at least to the rest of the world is America's social and cultural control of the rest of the world, from its media to its music and film industry to its cultural identity. The eyes of the world look towards America from the big cities of Europe and Asia, to rural communities in Africa and South America, the US has a massive cultural control of the rest of the world. In countries outside of the United States, americanization or americanisation is the influence the United States has on the culture of other countries, such as their popular culture, cuisine, technology, business practices, or political techniques. The term has been used since at least 1907. Within the United States, the term Americanization refers to the process of acculturation by immigrants or annexated populations (e.g. the Californios) to American customs and values. This is one of the fundamental and most important tactics of an empire, to spread there culture to all corners of the colonies, it may be argued that Russia and China are powerful countries economically and have powerful military's, but they do not have the cultural power of America. Can you name off hand a well known Chinese or Russian singer or actress, but I'm guessing Chinese and Russian citizens could name hundreds of American stars, because American culture is spread far and wide and streamed into the living rooms of citizens from such countries Hollywood (the American film and television industry) dominates most of the world's media markets. It is the chief medium by which people across the globe see American fashions, customs, scenery and way of life. U.S.-based TV programs are re-broadcast around the world, many of them through American broadcasters and their subsidiaries (such as HBO Asia, CNBC Europe and CNN International). Many of these distributors broadcast mainly American programming on their TV channels. In 2006, a survey of 20 countries by Radio Times found seven American shows in the ten most-watched: CSI: Miami, Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. American films are also extremely popular around the world, often dominating cinemas. Adjusting for inflation, the highest grossing film of all time is Gone with the Wind. Often part of the negotiating in free trade agreements between the U.S. and other nations involves screen quotas. One such case is Mexico, which abolished screen quotas following the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.. Recently South Korea has agreed to reduce its quota under pressure from the U.S. as part of a free trade deal. Many U.S.-based artists, are recognized worldwide and the culture of such artists as far as fashion, dance style ect can be seen worldwide. Of the top ten global brands, seven are based in the United States. Coca-Cola, which holds the top spot, is often viewed as a symbol of Americanization.Fast food is also often viewed as being a symbol of U.S. marketing dominance. Companies such as Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino's Pizza among others have numerous outlets around the world. Many of the world's biggest computer companies are also U.S. based, such as Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Dell and IBM, and much of the software bought worldwide is created by U.S. based companies. Carayannis and Campbell note that "The USA occupies, also in global terms, a very strong position in the software sector. By 1900 observers saw "Americanization" as synonymous with progress and innovation. In Germany in the 1920s, the American efficiency movement was called "rationalization" and it was a powerful social and economic force. In part it looked explicitly at American models, especially Fordism. "Rationalization" meant higher productivity and greater efficiency, promising science would bring prosperity. More generally it promised a new level of modernity and was applied to economic production and consumption as well as public administration. Various versions of rationalization were promoted by industrialists and social democrats, by engineers and architects, by educators and academics, by middle class feminists and social workers, by government officials and politicians of many parties. As ideology and practice, rationalization challenged and transformed not only machines, factories, and vast business enterprises but also the lives of middle-class and working-class Germans. During the Cold War, the Americanization was the method to counter the processes of Sovietization around the world. Education, schools, and universities in particularly, became the main target for Americanization. However, the resistance to Americanization of the university community restrained it. In conclusion America is currently and I believe unarguably the most powerful country in the world and has been so since the 1940s at least, I believe in future history books the age we are and have been living in will be refered to as the American Empire, that does not mean it will go on forever, empire inevitably ends, all previous empires have ended, so too eventually will the American's. Fact remains that American politics, culture and industry is spread worldwide, whether it has been wanted or not and has often been done so by force and on the backs of those who have suffered in the colonised countries and states.