Australia is on the verge of tightening monetray policy for a second time, while India is letting it be known that it is moving toward fighting inflation instead of stimulating its economy.

I think this is interesting because aside from being in China's orbit these economies are very different. Australia mainly commodity driven, India production driven, (even if the production is service oriented).

What it makes me think of is what is in store for the U.S. economy. As I have mentioned before we could very well see global driven inflation while the U.S. economy continues to stagnate. And if competition amongst retailers continues to drive consumer goods deflation in that atmosphere what that means is a hit on corporate earnings.

In any rate despite the U.S. still having the largest economy in the world I think the continued focus on our numbers disregards the fact the we no longer drive a lot of the dynamics in the global economy. Sure a lot of global analysts watch our numbers, but we should be just as focused on the numbers of a host of other countries.

It may be a blessing that there are other economies to which we are tied by trade and investment that face counterbalancing problems. Maybe, the world economy, as a whole, will damp out. As sov keeps pointing out, it would be more meaningful to watch our numbers, and anyone elses', if they were more honest and meaningful.