America At Work

Recent excerpt from the Gartman Letter out of London, by Dennis Gartman:

AMERICA, THE MIGHTY ECONOMIC MACHINE: We do tend to forget just how massive is the American economic engine. When were hear of a gross domestic product that is heading toward $13 trillion annually, the mind numbs up. This is an impossibly large number to try to comprehend, and so we simply sigh and let the number pass into oblivion. Thus, we came across a wonderful map last week whilst in Canada that compares the GDP's of the various states of the union to nations around the world. For example, it is worthy of note that the "GDP" of Texas is very near to the GDP of Canada; that the "GDP" of Florida is roughly equal to that of S. Korea; that the "GDP" of California is roughly equal to that of France; that Virginia equals Austria; that Ohio equals Australia; that Russia's economy is but 80% of that of Ohio; that Illinois equals Mexico; that N. Carolina equal Sweden... and we could go on.

When presented in this fashion one can get a sense of the sheer majesty of the US economy, lost amidst the data of GDP, and industrial production, and retail sales and the like. But to know that N. Carolina equals Sweden... well that puts it all in perspective. This is one large country, and one enormous global engine for the world... a magnet for immigrants... the great "sucking sound" moving in direct opposition to what Ross Perot warned us about those many years ago.

Capitalist America---making the world economy work.