In the US, where I am for a few days, business and financial stories have been shunted out of the limelight as senators McCain and Obama vie for the popular vote. Channel after channel devotes almost twenty-four hours of coverage to every grandstanding speech, broken only by adverts – mainly from the candidates, but occasionally for headache pills – and, on the West Coast where I am, by competing messages about local policy amendments.

On the one hand, it's inspiring that American politics speaks so directly to American people and seeks to engage and motivate them about every policy nuance, but as the presidential campaign nears its conclusion, the two hopefuls' messages have merged into one: “American companies, American jobs, American people”. The rest of the world... who are they?

One candidate (I forget which) even went so far as to say that outsourcing was part of the impetus for the Wall Street collapse – neglecting to mention that both candidates have outsourced their campaigns for voter registration. Each candidate, of course, has wasted no time accusing the other's outsourcing partner of corruption.

The insularity of the US is something to behold at first hand: I was in the US a month ago, in the eye of the Wall Street storm, and even then the election was the only show in town, as the Down Jones tanked 800 points one day, and 500 on another.

Perhaps the side effects of a decade of living on credit are simply accepted in America: like those painkiller TV ads I mentioned, which, by law, have to list all of the possible side effects of swallowing one: may induce nausea, dizzy spells, dementia, memory loss and liver damage. Just like buying a house, or a shopping spree on your store card.

In the UK, the financial crisis has been a bigger story than in the US where it originated, while government is usually in the spotlight only to demonstrate its incompetence.

Yes, another day, another memory stick lost: this time outsourcing provider Atos Origin is being blamed by the Department of Work and Pensions after a memory stick containing passwords and security details for the Gateway website was found in a pub car park. As I write, the website is down for security testing, so people are unable to submit tax information online.

The Prime Minister has finally admitted the obvious – the Government cannot guarantee data security – but still has trouble with the underlying message: it's not about technology, it's about policy and good management.

Also in the UK there is further unease in the services sector, as BT announces that its Global Services division is underperforming and dragging down the group's overall profits.

This is a worry: unlike the US, whose economy relies on Main Street shoppers, the post-Thatcherite UK is built on services: that sector the Government is so keen to blame for its own ills.

In the US, if you can inspire the people you can rebuild the economy. In the UK, if we talk down the services sector we are talking ourselves into a slump.

But we'll be right back after this break....