Hahaha funniest thing I have read in quite a while. This is the biggest problem with 9 out of 10 Americans, they think they are great, but otherwise is true.....prone to propaganda this little yanks.
European economies STILL look much stronger than U.S.
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In North America, the media propaganda machine has been preaching a constant message over the last six months: the U.S. economy may be weak, but the Eurozone is weaker still. Do the facts support this message?
Doing a little research, I discovered a superb map on Der Spiegel's web site (with a convenient English translation), detailing total EU debt, along with expressing that debt as a percentage of GDP. In addition, the unemployment rate of member states was also reported.
The only deficiency with the statistics provided is that they are including data up to just the end of the third quarter of 2008 – and most economies have deteriorated significantly (and in varying degrees) since that time.
Even so, the differences between the U.S. and Eurozone economies are so large, that basic trends would not be altered. While there have been several crises occurring in European economies since that point, I calculated my comparison of total debt at the current Euro/USD exchange rate – which is very unflattering to the Euro. Thus, changes since the end of the third quarter appear to be roughly offsetting.
Starting with a comparison of total debt, the U.S. economy is burdened with 40% more debt than the EU, and with the exploding U.S. deficit in the current fiscal year, that gap will increase this year (and increase again when the USD falls dramatically versus the Euro).
However, comparing total debt doesn't really provide a clear comparison. What is more revealing are debt-to-GDP comparisons of these economies. Again, this measurement is extremely favorable to the EU.
Only Italy, Greece, and Belgium have debt problems as serious as the U.S., in this comparison. While the economies of Germany and the U.K. are showing very negative trends, those trends are not as bad as that of the U.S. In other words, not only is the U.S. carrying a much larger debt-load in absolute terms, but its debt is much harder to service, given relative GDP's.
I know some will suggest my calculations are off, given the reported size of the U.S. economy: $14 trillion/year. Sadly, as with virtually all other “official”, U.S. government “statistics”, reported U.S. GDP is a gross exaggeration.
Roughly $2 trillion per year of reported U.S. GDP is statistical padding. It is deemed GDP, for which no commercial transactions take place, and results in no goods being created, or any tangible wealth created.It is the subtraction of this “padding” where we see that “the Emperor is wearing no clothes”.
Suddenly, both the debt-to-GDP ratio of the U.S., and its “deficit” as a percentage of GDP soar to much larger numbers – catastrophic numbers. It is also necessary to revise the U.S.'s deficit to GDP ratio higher a second time when a look at the U.S.'s “bottom line” shows that for all this decade, the “official U.S. deficit” has only accounted for half of the actual increase in the U.S. national debt.
To put this more bluntly, throughout this decade, the U.S. deficit (as a percentage of GDP) has been twice as high as reported, while apparently no one in the rest of the world has bothered to look at this glaring discrepancy.
Throw in the multi-trillion dollar U.S. deficit for this fiscal year, which is likely to approach $3 trillion (doubling the “official” estimate), and suddenly the U.S. economy looks more like the economy of Iceland, than the economies of the EU.
There are numerous other ways to quantify the much more serious debt problems of the U.S., and its terminally-ill economy. Unlike the EU, the U.S. economy is extremely dependent on consumption, which accounts for roughly ¾ of U.S. GDP.
Thanks to the combination of huge, personal debt levels, job losses, reduced personal credit, and (most importantly) the elimination of home equity to squander on consumer goods, the U.S. economy has lost about $2 TRILLION/year in purchasing power. This is roughly equivalent to levying a 30% consumption tax on every good and service in the U.S. economy – but with no tax revenues to show for it.
By one estimate I saw, U.S. retail capacity could be as much as 50% more than what current spending can sustain. This would imply tens of millions of additional jobs lost.
I have written so profusely about the catastrophic collapse of the U.S. real estate market, that I will merely add that in this comparison, the U.S. is once again in much worse condition than Europe.
The comparison of the U.S. economy to that of Iceland certainly sounds like rhetorical excess, but I stand by the comparison. Iceland's economy was a “house of cards” (closely patterned after the U.S. financial sector) which collapsed when the one, grossly over-heated sector which supported that economy collapsed.
There are only two significant differences between the economies of Iceland and the U.S., in terms of economic health. One is reputation: the U.S. has been able to live off its past glory, and get away with absurd lies, exaggerating the strength of its economy in every way.
Second, unlike Iceland, the U.S. economy was a “house of cards” built upon two props, instead of one. Along with the Ponzi-scheme business-model of the U.S. financial sector, the U.S. consumer-economy was also a “house of cards” reliant upon ever-higher debt levels to offset ever-decreasing real wages.
Both props are now gone, and will not return. The U.S. financial crime syndicate is thoroughly discredited around the world, along with still being hopelessly insolvent. The U.S. consumer is dead, with the official “cause of death” being a “debt overdose”.
By this time next year, Eurozone residents will be feeling thankful that their economic problems are only moderately debilitating, as opposed to the terminal illness of the once-mighty, U.S. economy.
----> Yank clowns