How I know Christian Broadcasting Network is making stuff up.

While researching stats (from older stories), I couldn't resist clicking through to see what CBN had to say about the double-dip recession spreading in Europe:

"And since Europe and the United States are major trading partners, continued financial trouble could also affect the already fragile U.S. economy. 

The United States and European Union account for nearly a third of all world trade."

The 27-nation European Union and the US are not major trading partners.  The total traffic (exports + imports) between the US and the EU account for just 17.3% of all US' international trades, per the International Trade Administration.  US trade with its 3 largest partners (Canada, Mexico and China) is more than 2.4X that of  US' trade with the EU.

Citing US+EU as accounting for one-third of all global trade, is not very important in an Eurocrisis discussion.  Only about 13% of US' total GDP comes from exporting goods and services to other nations.

But wait, there's more.

In a separate article on Dutch budget talks, CBN warns that the US is headed in the same direction:

"This week, the Dutch government gave up after not being able to come up with a plan to bring down their deficit. 

Some experts warn if the United States doesn't take care of business soon, America will be going down the same path."

I don't know how they came up with this idea that the Dutch are on the road to a massive debt mess, but a quick look at their 10-year government bonds shows a 2.18% rate -- that's just a 25 basis points premium over the US 10-year bond rate.  Is that supposed to be apocalyptic?

I guess just as curious, is the blatant ignorance of CBN, that the US spending has slowed.  Via BES, since Q2-2011, total federal expenditures has decreased 4.1%.

Further, the Netherlands has a lower debt-to-GDP than the US in the first place, so it makes no sense that the US would be looking to the Netherlands to see what would happen if the US debt isn't dealt with...we're long past where they were at for 2011, at 65.2% debt/GDP.  Oh, and you know who else has higher debt/GDP than the Dutch?  Germany, the model austerity nation, had a 81.2% debt/GDP ratio for 2011.

You're laughing right now at CBN, right?

Having endured a few 700 Club shows with Pat Robertson offering peculiar, out-of-touch commentary, I am not surprised that CBN would make false assertions in online articles.