The United States imports more goods and services than she exports. This statement infers that US citizens are spending more than they earn and have to rely on foreign capital inflows to fund consumption. What is the accumulated debt of the United States at this second? Follow this link.
Whether you want to argue that the debt belongs to the current generation or the future, is beyond me, but the numbers are eye-popping. Let's put a billion into perspective. This stat is from a reader's email.
A billion seconds ago it was 1959. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThis is David Simonds a webmaster of some finance,insurance,mortgage related websites having pr- 2 to 4 and I want to exchange links with same theme based sites.If you are interested then plz contact me at
davidsimonds007@gmail.com
Thanks,
David
While the debt truly is horrendous, it has nothing to do with the fact that the U.S. imports more goods than it exports. Even if we have a trade deficit, it doesn't mean we don't benefit from the net imports. After all, if the retail stores that sell the cheaper imports, for example, can charge lower prices and net a higher profit, that means the business makes more and the products are cheaper for every customer. The fact is, manufacturing in many forms isn't supposed to be carried out by a major economy with many educated citizens that can be doing other things - like making machines to do the manufacturing, or lower income countries, so that they can focus on service and engineering/inventing new technologies. After all, the lamp seller doesn't ask the government for relief or protection from it's lowest cost competitor, the sun, which offers free light all day, now does it?
ReplyDelete