The United States posted a $65.7 BILLION trade deficit in February. The U.S. hit a record high [or low, depending on how you frame it] in January with a $68.7 BILLION trade deficit. The end of 2005 net trade deficit was $723.6 BILLION.
China posted an $11.19 BILLION trade surplus for March, doubling the surplus from March of 2005.
That’s a lot of money to make up. And we’re digging deeper into debt to China every day. When they call in those loans, whether in physical cash or political power moves, it’s going to be really ugly. populist has diary from over the weekend citing the $2B/day we’re borrowing from overseas [including China] to keep spending while operating under such crushing deficits. $2B a day. Lovely.
There’s a word for this: unsustainable.
Just a cog that runs Crazy Town as you noted.
Perhaps war profiteer Dick Cheney could exercise some of his Halliburton stock options and reduce this debt.
3,281% increase! holy shit. i need me a good stockbroker. and money to invest. and stock options in a war profiteering company. wait, not the last part, that’s eeeeeeevil.
The Chinese, alone, could collapse the US economy just by dumping all their $’s…T-Bills etc. Japan, and South Korea are also huge stakeholders in US securities and could create similar conditions.
Were they to do such a thing, it would plunge the US, as well as other nations, into a massive Depression and unprecedented, by our standards, inflation, creating conditions not unlike those in Germany that led to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich.
Given the fact that we already have the lunatics in charge of the asylum, such draconian measures are not required…they just have to sit back and watch, with much amusement I suspect, while BushCo™ completes the deconstruction for them.
Karma’s a bitch, and we’re (the inclusive) prime for a major smack down.
Hubris breeds Humiliation.
Peace
Hidden in this leader article from Joseph Stiglitz is the worrying question as to what happens if China, which currently has a savings glut, begins to save less. In has words “who will finance America’s trade deficit of more than $2bn a day? This is a topic for another day, which may not be far off.”
Very worrying indeed!