It is the month of August, a little resort town sits next to the shores
of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is
tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

As it often happens, a rich tourist comes to town.

He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception
counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.
The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt
to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay
his debt to the pig raiser.

The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to
the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay
his debt to the town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her
"services" on credit.

The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar
bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she used.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter
so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms,
and takes his 100 dollar bill, after saying that he did not like any of
the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the economy having improved with
the whole town now being debt free, the future looks optimistic .

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how business is done today.
Have you paid your taxes this year?

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Economy contraction and expansions, by percentage. Did someone say that America didnt have what it takes?

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The IMF (International Monetary Fund) expects at least 11 major parts of the world to have more severe economic contractions than the United State this year, including most of western Europe, Japan, Russia, and Mexico. Europe will still be stumbling along behind the United States next year, as well. Here are the IMF's projections for economic growth in various parts of the world:


Economy 2009 / 2010

China 7.5 8.5
India 5.4 6.5
Middle East 2.0 3.7
Africa 1.8 4.7
Brazil -1.3 2.5
World total -1.4 2.5
Canada -2.3 1.6
U.S. -2.6 0.8
France -3.0 0.4
Spain -4.0 -0.8
U.K. -4.2 0.2
European Union -4.7 -0.1
Central/Eastern Europe -5.0 1.0
Italy -5.1 -0.1
Japan -6.0 1.7
Germany -6.2 -0.6
Russia -6.5 1.5
Mexico -7.3 3.0

If these projections come true, it means the United States, despite its overspent consumers, wrecked banks, and insolvent automakers, will be leading the world economy out of recession. Somehow. The developing world will help, but those high growth projections in China and India can be deceiving. China in particular has government policies that practically mandate high growth, and 8.5 percent in 2010 would be just about the bare minimum to keep employment at tolerable levels. And neither China nor India is a major buyer of American-made goods and services; for the most part, it's the other way around. With much of the developed world trailing the United States, it will take American consumers to ratchet up demand for the world's products.




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