SCDigest has always found most supply chain managers incredibly interested in overall economic news and predictions, so when we saw a very interesting infographic last week in the Wall Street Journal nicely summarizing the US economy compared to other key countries, we decided in would make a good kick off for our Supply Chain Graphic of the Week in 2015.

The graphic came in an article noting that the US overall is in pretty strong economic shape right now - but as always somewhat at risk to what appear to be still mostly stalled ecomomies around much of the rest of the world.

Most of the information in the graphic is self-explanatory, but note for example that the IMF forecast for US economic growth in 2105 calls for a decent 3.1% rise, versus just 1.4% in Brazil, 0.8% in Japan, and 1.3% in the Eurozone.

Deflation is a huge issue across the globe, with price rises falling below target levels in almost every country, and an especially worrisome problem for the Eurozone and Japan despite agggressive measures to get inflation up in those areas. The forecast calls for that trend to reverse itself a bit in 2015, however.

We'll see - commodity prices continue to tumble, whch augurs for lower inflation, not more.

US Economic Picture versus Others as We Enter 2015

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Interestingly, as the  bottom part of the chart notes, the US may be much better able to shakeoff more global economic woes, since exports are such a modest part of its overall GDP (just 14%), versus say an astounding 51% for Germany.

It's clear that if global trade gets a cold, Germany will catch pneumonia. On the other hand, Germany runs trade surpluses, while the US has large deficits.