THE GART MAN

Dennis Gartman with a great tidbit of information this morning on how well the economy is doing in his clever eyes:

"we pay particular heed to tax revenues, for we believe tax revenues to be the clearest and cleanest information regarding the economy- As we like to say and simply put, no one anywhere has paid tax on business he or she thinks they are going to do, or upon profits they think they are going to earn, or upon hours they think they are going to work. People and businesses pay taxes only on profits they have indeed earned or upon hours they have indeed worked. For years, tax receipts have been running far above the government's figures on GDP growth, which we've used to argue that the economy was far stronger that the government told us it was. However, beginning in the autumn of last year, we began to watch with some sense of impending disaster as tax receipt growth rates were beginning to falter. Now they are plunging; the "faltering" state is behind us and the collapsing state is hard upon us. For the record, February's receipts fell to $105.72 billion compared to the $120.31 billion in receipts for February of 07. Treasury said both corporate and individual income tax payments fell. Treasury should have added that they did not fall..... they plunged. Spending for the month rose to $281.3 billion.....obviously a record for any February... from $240.3 billion last year."

Dennis is long gold and short equities expecting the ratio between the two to greatly increase in favor of the metal.

He will be guest hosting Squawk Box tomorrow morning.