At last count, the United States owes the rest of the world over two trillion dollars. That’s two thousand billion dollars, a lot of money even for the late Senator Everett Dirksen. As recently as the 1970’s, America was the major creditor nation, lending money overseas and investing its dollars abroad. We were exporting food, airplanes, technology and even consumer goods. In those days, the total of all imports to and exports from the US to the rest of the world amounted to slightly less than 12% of its GDP. And almost half of that was trade between the US and Canada and Mexico.But no more. Over the past 3 decades, the US has bought far more goods than it has sold. And those goods now are sold to America from factories in China, the far east and South America, as well as massive amounts of oil from Venezuela and the other OPEC countries. The current monthly balance of trade deficit is running at about $58 billion. China alone reports to have over $1 trillion in US money.
2007-09-04
16:17:54
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Politics