Foreign Investment's Flip Side, U.S. Trade Deficit Swells...-WP

[Rose Siding]

snip>
But the influx of capital has an ominous flip side -- the ballooning U.S. trade deficit, which soared 24 percent in 2004, to $617.7 billion. The dollars spent by Americans on Japanese cars, Chinese televisions and other imported goods end up in the hands of foreigners, who plow them into U.S. Treasury bonds and other securities like the ones sold by Leonard and his fellow traders.

Therein lies a serious worry for many economists: As the deficit mounts, so does America's overall indebtedness to foreigners, which now totals about $3 trillion. That would be less troubling if the money streaming in from overseas were helping to finance a boom in productive assets such as factories and machinery.

But to the contrary, economic data show historic highs in the proportion of U.S. spending on consumption and housing. Not only is the United States piling up debt, it is doing so while consuming at record levels.
...
That dark perspective is at odds with the position often taken by Bush administration officials, among others, about the trade deficit (or current account deficit, as its broadest measure is called). The gap, according to the administration, should be viewed in a more positive than negative light, given the eagerness with which foreigners supply funds to the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51650-2005Feb24.html

[lovuian]

1. 24% OMG!!! thats freaking unbelievable!!! This is a disaster!!!

and the rest of the people are sleeping and totally powerless to stop it!!!

How can Republicans live with themselves!!!

[Erika]

2. W is the corporate ruler of the planet

with no concern for U.S. citizens or their futures. Foreign countries now "own" a significant part of this country. Bush thinks twice before setting foreign policy against our foreign debt holders.

Most Americans seem to be unaware of our foreign debt. How sad.

[AndyTiedye]

3. What do you expect?

with the Fed practically giving away dollars most of last year
to keep Boosh** in office

the government running up the biggest deficits anybody has ever seen

and the Chinese practically giving away Yuans in exchange so we'll
keep on buying their stuff

and our jobs being outsourced overseas too

and Homeland Security making foreign tourists feel unwelcome here

and Boosh**'s warmongering causing people around the world to
boycott American goods

[cliss]

4. It's shocking, isn't it?

We don't do anything except consume stuff. And the rest of the world is only too obliging.

It's amazing. We have huge, overloaded freighters crossing the Pacific Ocean, bringing yet ever more shit to be hung up on hangers, fluffed up and put price tags on 'em more and more and more. And we export our debt. We don't make anything anymore.

Meanwhile, our garages are stuffed, our homes are filled with ever more shit.

Ever been to a Goodwill Store lately? They're bursting at the seams with stuff. Gerald Celente our #1 problem in the US is Overproduction.

We're like this giant octopus, sucking up everything within sight, and we've grown to be this horrendous, huge blob.

[FloridaPat]

5. Just imagine how hard it would have been to understand and know

this stuff without the internet. It's taken me years to understand a lot of this economic stuff our government has been doing. A lot of this is hard to understand. Without the internet, I would maybe know a tenth of what is going on. So you can imagine how much the average American understands or even knows. Apparently if is isn't about sex, it's not worth mentioning. Except with gay porn real prostitute journalists.