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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: see clearly now who wrote (98018)	5/29/2009 1:34:20 PM
From: benwood	Respond to of 116555

I don't doubt the overall trends in the report. However, the facts often cloud the conclusions. Not wanting to belabor anything, because I don't really care, there was this bit: "Over the last twenty years or so, consolidated general government spending [...] has steadily declined in Canada from a peak of about 53 percent of GDP [...] in 1992 to just below 40 percent in the last few years (2004-08)." I wonder if this is caused predominantly by the huge increase in value of oil and natural gas exports over the '04-'08 time period (ala Russia last year and the year before). My point is that all these are "equations" with many variables, and looking at just one or two of the variables can be misleading. But my impressions from what I've read and experienced over the past 10-20 years agrees with the gist of what the writer is trying to convey, that socialism and centralized gov't power and debt accumulation is UP in the USA and DOWN in Canada.