WORLD/US ISSUES - ECONOMIC

Sunset Sunrise - 20040828

According to their "about us" page "Businessworld is India's leading magazine. An article by Basant Maheshwari, "The Sun is setting in the West", states the US " is facing one of the toughest tests in its history."

He writes, the US "country's debt-GDP ratio, at about 300%, is the highest ever - higher than the 260% touched during the epochal Depression of 1929." The table below gives some debt to GDP figures from other sources. Consumer plus public debt seems more like 340%.

He goes on to cite "India has posted a current account surplus for the first time since 1947.", while the US is posting a billion dollar a day account deficit. He makes other comaprisons between the US and India that lead him to believe the economic sun is rising in the east.

He ends his article saying his ideas are not an absolute comparison of the two countries. He feels his analysis indicates India "can grow stronger by a larger degree." The table to the right compares GDP of the US and India.

In 2003, 42 percent of the US public debt was foreign and international owned according to the Financial Services Fact Book In 1944, that percentage was 20.1.