No, really. The US trade deficit ballooned to over 31 billion dollars just in February, and that’s good news.
Why?
It means we’re spending more money, buying more hi-tech imported goods (like Lexus cars and memory chips from Japan, and cheese and wooden trinkets from France), and generally living it up again.
More importantly, it means we’re helping lift the rest of the world out of recession, which will in turn strengthen our recovery.
Look, trade deficits are the worst thing ever — if you ask Pat or Ross. They’re the best thing ever — if you ask me.
Who’s right? All three of us, of course; trade-offs are the beauty of economics. I just happen to think it’s pretty cool that the rest of the world is willing to give us real, tangible goods in exchange for green slips of paper we print by the ream.
Then that money comes back here into our banks and equities markets, because foreign banks and investments offer all the stability of a double wide mobile home with bad wiring in a tornado area on the San Andreas Fault.
So go on and buy that new sporty new VW Cabrio. If you don’t, then the terrorists will have won.
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