Thirty years ago was a different economy. It's all much more globalized now. That cat's out of the bag and it'll be hard to put it back. No need to sweat it though--I'm sure the billionaires and mulitnationals will land on their feet.
Not all national economies are in the same boat here. On one side you have the nations like Spain, Italy, the USA (et al) that have a serious debt/deficit problem and on the other, there are nations like China that are doing quite well... In the middle are countries like Canada and Germany that have enjoyed a significantly different experience during this down turn.
As far as mulit nationals and high net worth folks are concerned, capital is very mobile and as the investment/economic climate changes in one region, you will observe the flight of capital to other jurisdictions.
Don't forget, the US had a very 'friendly' environment for years and their economy lead the pack during that time; it not only attracted investment, but retained it as well.
Today is a vastly different story, but take a look at the environment and you get some strong clues as to the motivations in why and where the money is going
I don't think you can just blame government spending. Britain has been extremely austere--hasn't really helped. Canada, on the other hand, is a socialist state compared to the US, and yet we've fared a little better than them over the last thrity years.
Britain is an interesting example... Consider what the scenario would look like today if they had not introduced those measures.
To a degree, it also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that as the economy weakens (and spending isn't reduced by a relative amount), taxes generally go up to raise money and puts pressure on those small and mid size companies to remain solvent and/or generate a profit that reflects the risks.
I don't really understand internaitonal economics that much, but to me there's been a shift of control fro national to international entitites (like the World Bank, IMF) and the transfer of wealth, in aggregate, leading to a greater wealth imbalance between rich and poor. In other words, things that austerity programs actually make worse.
It's a complicated area of study - tons of impacting variables that are far outside the sphere of one nation's control... A good place to start is in analyzing the trade balances of nations and starting from there.