[ExI] undercover at Walmart

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 3:25 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If you see no connection between the huge US trade deficit and the
> current US debt mountain / financial collapse, then this might be an
> area that you would be advised to investigate further.

### The US doesn't have a debt mountain, only the US government
(created after the original United States of America died in the
so-called Civil War) does. There is no direct connection between the
US trade deficit and USG debt. Foreign investment in the US has
remained high, the demand for USG dollars was and still is high, that
is the reason for the trade "deficit". The US debt is another thing
caused by the greed of politicians and general stupidity of the
voters. Current financial problems are yet another issue, caused by
government interference in free trade within the US.

-------------------
>
> Since then, however, it's been all downhill, with the pace of decline
> rapidly accelerating in the past five years. Our annual trade deficit
> now exceeds 4% of GDP. Equally ominous, the rest of the world owns a
> staggering $2.5 trillion more of the U.S. than we own of other
> countries.

### So what? Investors from New York own more in North Dakota than
investors from North Dakota own in New York, creating an imbalance of
investment. Is this a big deal, and if not, why should the imbalance
of e.g. Swiss investments in the US be somehow different?

------------------
>
> In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich
> family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more
> than we produce--that's the trade deficit--we have, day by day, been
> both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we
> still own.
### A farm that writes IOUs in the currency printed in its own barn,
and underwriting its own mortgage. What is the problem?

Rafal