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“They are having something of a recovery, but it is in my judgment the… minimum you would expect.”

Mr. Black sees America’s growing debt as a black mark on its recovery. He said that the U.S. has gone from $10 trillion of accumulated debt to $18 trillion in the last six years.

“If they didn’t have 3% growth there’d be something absolutely inexplicable going on,” he said. “What is inexplicable is that they haven’t gotten more for their money than that.”

Diane Francis,Financial Post editor-at-large, National Post

ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

Shifting the conversation to the old world, Ms. Francis thinks there’s only one piece of Europe that really matters.

“The EU has become the United States of Germany,” she said. “They are in charge. They are the best economy on the planet.”

Ms. Francis cited Germany’s exports, its specialized manufacturing and its low youth unemployment.

Ms. Francis thinks that Germany, as the European powerbroker, is going to call Greece’s bluff.

“Greece is going to threaten to leave [the EU] if they don’t get their way, and Germany will say, fine, here’s the door,” she said.

She also thinks Germany will become the first country in the world to provide free energy through distributed power and renewable energy. As Germany kicks its oil and natural gas habit, she feels Russia’s hold on Europe will relax.

“Putin will continue to tighten the grip internally,” she said. “He will nationalize just about any company that needs it. He will even possibly fool around with the central bank… but I think he will slowly slip out of Eastern Ukraine. He clearly overplayed his hand, and even he must realize this.”