Trade Deficits - The Biggest Story This Week

The United States has a 500 billion dollar trade deficit with china and that is supposed to say something about the competitive position o the us. But in fact, most of us think that it's a sign of strength. When you're buying more from the rest of the world, that's probably because the domestic economy is doing well. So we should understand that as a source of strength. There's one final piece, which is a little more complicated, which is specific to the us. We've been running trade deficits for 40 years. It means t one of two things. First, over the really long run, we got to pay people back. And so I'm never going to flip