Oh yes, I actually had a point as well...

Commentators on CNBC continue to suggest that the USA accounts for 30% of the world economy and thus they conclude that any slowdown in the USA will mean an even greater slowdown in the rest of the world and that this will mean reduced demand for commodities worldwide, bringing inflation down which will allow Bernanke to raise interest rates, strengthen the dollar and lead to good times for the good old USA.

However, the 30% data is somewhat outdated. I don't know the statistic. Make a good QLINE question for you Richard. I've read that the USA accounted for 20% of world consumption in 2006. I don't even know how true that was however since then, housing came to a pretty abrupt stop and yet, there hasn't really been much of slowdown in demand for metals. As far as I know, copper is still in short supply despite the fact that my penny jar has more copper in it than they will need for home building construction in Nevada this year.

In addition to the housing slowdown, retail numbers have dropped as well. In the main time, soaring oil and commodity prices have caused increases in income in a whole lotta places outside the Good ol' USA, like the EUA. Like Russia. Like China herself. Like Canada. Like Poland. Ok... maybe not Poland although their economy is booming compared to just a few years ago.

So with the US economy not exactly on fire and the rest of the world doing quite well, me wonders exactly what percentage of consumption the USA really does make up for. Maybe it's only 15 percent now? Maybe less.

Let's break that down a litte further since most of the consumption in the USA is by just a small percentage of the population and that population isn't really suffering too much. They're still going to be consuming big cars and flying off to Dubai to ski inside skyscrapers or sunbath on man made islands.

Let's get the facts! Richard, can you ask this on QLiNe? But if you do, can you word it such that your question begs to know this in the context of this changing world?