Matt Yglesias

Dec 18th, 2008 at 8:22 am

Questions That Are Too Hard for Me

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Kevin Drum raises the specter of the trade deficit:

Maybe we really can’t worry too much about this at the moment. But the trade deficit bubble is going to pop eventually just like the dotcom bubble and the housing bubble. We at least ought to be thinking about this a little bit.

This goes back to the fraught issue of global savings imbalances. For reasons that I don’t think people understand very well, we not only have a number of high-savings perpetual-surplus countries in the developed world (Japan, Germany, etc.) but we have the odd specter of persistent trade surpluses among developing countries like China. The way this is “supposed” to work is that Chinese people, being poor but growing rapidly, consume more than they produce. The current accounts balance out because savers in rich countries should be investing money in China — building up China’s capital stock and so forth. Investments in capital-poor developing countries “should” offer a high rate of return for developed world savers, and the injection of foreign capital should speed China’s growth. And for “China” you can substitute “Mexico” or “India” or what have you. The world, however, doesn’t actually work like that. Instead, China has been running persistent surpluses. And so have various energy-rich developing countries. So money keeps getting plowed into various US investments. But the US isn’t a poor, developing, capital-poor country. And so a lot of the investment in the United States seems to be going into speculative bubbles — first dot-com stocks, then MBS. Now people are buying up no-interest treasury bonds.

Paul Krugman wrote the other day about how to achieve rebalancing:

That’s where things get complicated: a lower US trade deficit means lower surpluses and/or higher deficits elsewhere. Who’s the counterpart to our adjustment? OK, the Middle East, which no longer has its oil windfall. But China is having its own slowdown, as is Japan.

In other words, trying to figure out where we go from here is a sort of global jigsaw puzzle — and I haven’t managed to solve it yet.

So, yeah, he wrote about it but he didn’t have the answer. Brad DeLong offers this:

If it weren’t for the fact that the furshlugginer dollar refuses to fall in value, the answer would be obvious: we will have a boom in import-competing manufacturing (and exports). But then the rest of the world has a long-run problem: if we decide to no longer be the world’s importer of last resort, than what serves as a locomotive to keep it near full employment?

But if the dollar doesn’t fall, then we have a long-run problem. The only answer I can think of is for the U.S. to then become the world’s largest private-equity fund: they lend us their money, and we then invest the money back in their economies–in industries and companies that then have a very high demand for U.S. high-tech goods and for U.S. services exports.

I’ve heard some economists argue that we’re pursuing some kind of misguided strong dollar policy that’s responsible for our currency’s refusal to devalue, but I don’t actually see what policy that might be. We appear to be doing everything you would do to shake investor confidence in U.S. public finances and spark a decline in our currency.

Maybe the answer to these difficult questions is lurking inside CAP’s global new deal report. I’ll need to read it.






52 Responses to “Questions That Are Too Hard for Me”

  1. yo-z Says:

    Isn’t a growing Middle Class in China and India a potential answer to this problem? If we start to create too much stuff, the prices will either go down, or we will start making less stuff, right? So, what if we start making even more stuff when we start to run out of people to buy the stuff? Won’t the prices go further down, and more people in China, India, and even Africa be able to buy the stuff, and buoy the whole system up?

  2. DAS Says:

    Young Matt,

    Please learn something about how economic imperialism works … energy rich, developing countries of course export to developed countries to whom they serve as (de facto) resource colonies.

    And your point about investment capital blowing up bubbles is very important one that is often overlooked. Our credit crunch is not so much about “people living beyond their means” as how the markets match a demand for capital with a supply of capital.

    Back in the old days, people saved money in banks and S&Ls who loaned that money out to people who needed it at not too unreasonable interest rates so said money could be paid back (around this time of year they sometimes play a movie in which an explanation of that phenomenon is given by the protagonist — “your money is in his house”, etc.). Nowadays, people are so insecure they don’t feel they can get enough money saving in a bank or S&L so they “invest” the money. And this blows up bubbles. Since the hoi palloi still need capital, they become “investment tools” and hence the bubble bursting means they burst.

  3. Tim H. Says:

    This problem was solved long ago. They’re called tariffs, and they work really well for rebalancing trade.

  4. rea Says:

    This problem was solved long ago. They’re called tariffs, and they work really well for rebalancing trade.

    Google “Smoot-Hawley”

  5. Glen Tomkins Says:

    Don’t worry your pretty little head about it

    Let Capital do your thinking for you. It’s what we’ve done so far, and it’s gotten us where we are today.

    Of course, in human terms it makes no sense for a country like China that badly needs capitalization to send its extra money to the US, which is desperately trying to destroy whatever industries it has left. But it happens anyway because Capital, not any human agency, is on charge. Capital gets itself sent to the US to buy into some hedge fund because the hedge fund gives better ROI than some boring factory in China that will only make low-margin products for mans. Capital doesn’t want itself dispersed in factories and the products they make to serve humans,it wants to gather itself to itself in the pyramids that are its chosen dwelling place.

    It goes without saying that this doesn’t end well. Once Capital has gathered all of itself into a pure pyramid, one untainted by any contact with the human economy, once it has laid waste the last human industry, then all of the value gathered into that pyramid disappears into the 25th Dimension, leaving the humans sitting on a trash heap scratching our sores with potsherds.

  6. low-tech cyclist Says:

    Well, the dollar just took a big plunge (a euro is now worth $1.44), so that part seems to be taken care of.

    But maybe we should start thinking of investment bubbles somewhat differently than we have in the past. I’m starting to think that they’re a simple matter of supply and demand: too much surplus money (dollars, RMB, whatever) chasing too few investment opportunities.

    For the past 15 years, I’ve been thinking that TALOMSAATT explains most counterintuitive economic phenomena.

    TALOMSAATT = “there’s a lot of money sloshing around at the top.”

    Basically, wealth in the hands of people who aren’t going to spend it - whether those ‘people’ are the Chinese government or our own ultra-rich - is growing faster than America’s or the world’s economy can grow and produce viable new investments. This imbalance is a real problem, and needs to be addressed.

    There’s no way to make the Chinese government give more of its surplus to its people to spend. It ought to do that, but that’s not their thinking, so we have to live with that.

    But we can adjust things here at home so that the slice of the pie held by the super-rich doesn’t grow - and preferably shrinks somewhat. So we really should do that, to the maximum extent possible.

    Sometimes class war is good for you.

  7. Benny Lava Says:

    yo-z,

    What is it that the US makes that a middle class person in China or India would want that they couldn’t get cheaper somewhere else? The only thing I can think of is agricultural commodities like beef and cheese.

  8. daveNYC Says:

    Please learn something about how economic imperialism works … energy rich, developing countries of course export to developed countries to whom they serve as (de facto) resource colonies.

    Doesn’t really explain China or India though. They consume resources and export finished goods or services.

  9. JimboSlice Says:

    It seems to me like a great thing for American’s that all of these foreigners are investing at the height of the bubble and losing their shirt. They sell us computers and TV’s that are worthless after 4 years, we sell them credit default swaps and bundled mortgages that are worthless after 4 years.

    The real problem is that we need capital investment in production so that we can give the uneducated in our society the opportunity for the American dream again. Not everyone was made for college, and not every college degree pans out, plus tell me the last time someone out of prison got a desk job. We need jobs for those people, and we need to be investing in projects that will create those jobs. American’s love buying crap, we should start making it here in the USA again!

  10. Dan Kervick Says:

    Isn’t part of the solution to get the slave-driving Chinese to allow a little more of their national income to flow to workers who are responsible for generating it? That will unleash a vast reservoir of pent-up demand. The Chinese can then shift some significant fraction of their export-based economic activity over to making stuff for one another, and also create export opportunities for others.

    Given the sheer size of the Chinese population, the high end of the Chinese market has the potential to be vast, even if it is a small proportion of Chinese society as a whole.

    If we can get ourselves out in front of the next wave of new energy products, including automobiles, and other agile personal transportation devices, we can definitely make things that the Chinese will want to buy. But Americans are going to have to learn more about how to research and develop for foreign markets, and change some long-ingrained habits.

  11. The Other Steve Says:

    As I was walking around the mall last night doing some christmas shopping, I was struck by the number of items I encountered that said “Made in China”.

    And then I was struck even more by the price.

    Someone explain to me why it is we moved all of our manufacturing to China with the supposed purpose of saving money and ended up with everything doubling in price.

  12. Joe Strummer Says:

    I honestly don’t understand why there is concern about trade deficits, and I don’t think people who are concerned about trade deficits know why they’re concerned about trade deficits, other than to say “We can’t be buying from the Chinese!”

    Living in North Carolina, I buy lots of goods that are made in states other than NC. NC, I’d suspect, has a trade deficit with other states. But why do we care?

    I guess, “tariffs are an answer” but to what question? If the question is, how can we make all consumers poorer, then tariffs are definitely the answer since they raise the cost of goods on everyone who buys them. Tariffs are an incredibly regressive way of raising money for the gov’t.

    I would say this: it’s remarkable how many bad ideas there are when a country goes into an economic tailspin. That we should bailout this or that financial or auto company. That we should inflate the currency. That the government should spend outrageous sums to jumpstart the economy. Interestingly, all of these ideas are built on a metaphor.

  13. Tim H. Says:

    Yeah, Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression so tariffs should be avoided at all costs. Wait, we just tried no tariffs and are going to get a depression anyway, but tariffs are still evil.

  14. novakant Says:

    What our esteemed economists don’t or don’t want to realize is that the exceptional economic position of the US was largely built on sand - the first step to recovery would be to realize that the party is over and hegemony doesn’t last forever. The US is and will be important, but not that important.

  15. Benny Lava Says:

    I guess I don’t see any evidence for China and India becoming a destination for US exports. I’ll ask it again: what does the US make that China can’t make cheaper? Do they really want US made cars? Wouldn’t they just buy Chinese cars, like Cherry motors? And don’t forget Tata in India. What else does the US manufacture? Planes? What happens if Boeing fails? I reiterate, the US has a comparative advantage in growing cows for milk and slaughter. Other than that, I can’t really think of much we have that they’d want to buy. Can you?

  16. El Cid Says:

    Actually, if you Google “Smoot-Hawley,” one of the first links to come up is Wikipedia, where you can see that there’s no agreement whatsoever on this myth of a consensus that Smoot-Hawley caused or greatly worsened the Great Depression.

    Now, I’m not saying Wikipedia is or is not reliable. But if the answer is “Google Smoot-Hawley,” which is a pretty inclusive suggestion, Wikipedia is certainly worthy of that:

    Economic effects

    According to government statistics, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.[9]

    There is no universal agreement about the effect of the tariff. According to the U.S. Statistical Abstract, the effective tariff rate was 13.5% in 1929 and 19.8% in 1933 with 63% of all imports being duty-free.

    From 1821 through 1900 the United States averaged 29.7% effective tariff rates and peaked in 1830 at 57.3% with only 8% of all imports being duty-free, dwarfing the Smoot-Hawley rate. In addition, imports in 1929 were only 4.2% of the United States’ GNP and exports were only 5.0%.

    Smoot-Hawley’s effect on the entire U.S. economy may have been small, compared to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System. By 1937 the effective tariff rate was reduced to 15.6% when the reaction of 1937-1938 occurred, demonstrating no statistical correlation between this economic downturn and tariff levels. Senator Robert L. Owen testified at the hearings on HR 7230, the bill to make the Federal Reserve banks a national property, that; “In 1937, when the Federal Reserve Board called upon the banks to raise their reserves to twice what they had been before, there was a contraction of credit of two billion dollars.[10]

    Using panel data estimates of export and import equations for 17 countries, Jakob B. Madsen (2002) estimated the effects of increasing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on worldwide trade during the period 1929–1932. He concluded that real international trade contracted somewhere around 33% overall. His estimates of the impact of various factors included about 14% because of declining GNP in each country, 8% because of increases in tariff rates, 5% because of deflation-induced tariff increases, and 6% because of the imposition of nontariff barriers.

    The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act “imposed an effective tax rate of 60% on more than 3,200 products and materials imported into the United States”, quadrupling previous tariff rates.

    Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market crash of 1929, some economic historians consider the political discussion leading up to the passing of the act a factor in causing the crash, the recession that began in late 1929, or both, and its eventual passage a factor in deepening the Great Depression.[11] Unemployment was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933.[12]

    End of the tariffs

    As a result of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and other countries’ responses to it, the world after World War II saw a push towards multilateral trading agreements that would prevent a similar situation from unfolding. This led to the Bretton Woods Agreement, in 1944, a great lessening of global tariffs starting in December 1945, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in the 1950s.[13]

    However, the American Tariff League Study of 1951 which compared the effective tariff levels of 43 countries found that only 7 countries had a lower tariff level than the United States (5.1%). 11 countries had effective tariff rates higher than the Smoot-Hawley peak of 19.8% including the United Kingdom (25.6%). The 43 country average was 14.4% - 0.9% higher than the U.S. level of 1929.

    In addition to tariffs, many countries implemented non-tariff barriers to protect their industries in the aftermath of WW II after experiencing the dangers of dependence on imports for vital supplies brought upon by free trade policies. Many nations felt the ill effects of embargoes, naval blockades and submarine warfare upon their national security. An example of this involved Britain and France importing all of their watches and clocks from Switzerland and Germany prior to World War II. They discovered that the lack of a watch industry was a great handicap in building defense equipment during the war. Both nations determined never to be without a watch industry again and placed embargoes on watch imports after WW II.[14]

    Non-tariff barriers would become more important in the post-WW II reconstruction period. Japan for example, with an effective tariff rate of 1.6% in 1951 would put many non-tariff barriers in place. In June 1952 Japan’s “Basic Policy for the Introduction of Foreign Investment into Japan’s Passenger Car Industry” placed quotas, tariffs and commodity taxes on imports that closed the Japanese automobile market to American manufacturers for nearly two decades.[15]Japan would also make extensive use of licensing agreements which would transfer foreign technology to Japan in exchange for limited market access as in the case of the U.S. television industry. With Japan’s home market protected, Japanese manufacturers could make large profits at home to off-set the cost of selling their goods at reduced prices in foreign markets (dumping).

    While I’m not advocating that tariffs would necessarily help, I think it’s time we move beyond the ‘free trade’ nonsense which substitutes for discussions.

  17. DAS Says:

    If ya blame tarrifs for causing the Great Depression you also have to give tarrifs some credit too: our industrial economy was built behind a wall of tarrifs.

    And those that opposed that wall were those who opposed the development of our economy. Those who supported that wall were behind the development of our economy.

    Assuming everyone involved was acting out of rational self-interests, don’t you think tarrifs are likely to be good for economic development? Assuming that people were acting irrationally, then all this Econs 101 talk about “tarrifs are teh evil” is out the window anyway as the fundamental assumption of the subject is out the window.

    Not sayin’ tarrifs are good or bad, just challenging blanket statements made about them using arguments with no empirical basis or using one example when obvious counter-examples are around …

  18. Just Dropping By Says:

    Some very simple changes in tax policy to encourage saving would go a long way toward helping out on the deficit issue. For some reason it is absolutely forbidden to publicly discuss this even though I don’t know of an economist who would disagree.

  19. Glen Tomkins Says:

    Benny Lava,

    The US makes financial pyramids better than anyone else in the world. And since pyramids give better ROI than any “real” economy enterprise, pyramids will rake in the money.

    But why is the US better at financial pyramids than anyone else? Are we smarter than other people? Not really. More dishonest? No, but you’re getting warm.

    The US is better at pyramids than anyone else because we have a reputation for honesty, transparency and strict regulation of our markets. Money comes to US pyramids for the conscience-laundering that only we can confer on so-called investments that don’t actually invest in squat to do with the production of anything of any real human use or the service of any human needs. Only people with a reputation for sober, plodding honesty can run a really good con.

    You see how this ends, and it’s not pretty. That reputation for sober, plodding honesty, and well-regulated markets is going the way of the Arctic Ice.

    No, that doesn’t mean it’s all over quite yet for US markets. Our marketeers are now well-known for their dishonesty. But the US taxpayer still seems a soft-touch and an easy mark. Our markets will still give good ROI, and won’t see their final collpase, until the taxpayer revolts and gets off the bailout hayride.

    And even the US taxpayer is not the last stop. The cycle of destruction can’t end until we come back around to the foreigners with all that excess money to throw at us. Because, you see, the US taxpayer, stolid chump though he might seem at first glance, hasn’t been fool enough to actually fork over the cash for the bailout — not that he’s got it lying around to fork over anyway. Our fiscal creed in this country is borrow and spend. More fool all you foreigners for imagining that chumps who live by that creed will ever be able to repay you bigger chumps out there in the wider world. Oh, sure, our malefactors of great wealth once had tons of loose change jangling about, but they invested it all in our made-up Madoffian markets for nth order derivatives, and it all disappeared a few paragraphs back.

    Look, what the US really makes best, and that the rest of the world has already purchased, is economic devastation. Enjoy being eated.

  20. Njorl Says:

    what does the US make that China can’t make cheaper?

    soybeans, fruit, corn, organic chemicals, state of the art ICs, aircraft, many motor vehicle parts, computers, telecommunications equipment, luxury cars, medicines… about $70 billion dollars per year worth.

  21. Brad Says:

    Benny-Lava:

    in theory, as we lose out economically to China and India, our currency is supposed to decline to off-set the price differential. But this is the problem, as China realized that they needed to keep their currency artificially low in order to continue the rush to invest in the cheap labor there.

    What this does is (like a dam) artificially back-stop the great balancing which should have occurred. In fact, the early 90’s recession should have been worse, as this was essentially the first trade-caused recession. But instead, speculation and a once in a century technological revolution (the internet) smoothed over these problems.

    I agree - we have been hoodwinked by economists and multi-nationals telling us that free-trade is a win-win. The fact is, except for agricultural commodities, which often are limited by geography, most other goods and services can be provided anywhere, and therefore, price is the main determinant. And until China and India’s wages and the US’s wages equal each other, there will be this imbalance.

    Unfortunately, this means rampant unemployment in general.

  22. Steven Attewell Says:

    Just Dropping By:

    The reason why savings is a verboten topic is that it brings up something which is too sensitive a subject - given stagnant incomes, we actually can’t afford to increase savings without significantly reducing consumption, which is a no-no in recessions.

    The reason why this is so touchy a subject is that once you bring in stagnant incomes, you start talking about the maldistribution of wealth, the disturbing trend in which productivity gains are only accruing to the wealthy, etc. - all of which starts to push you in the direction of differential class power. Which pisses off economists, who don’t want to believe that power has any role to play in the economy. Moreover, if you conclude that the problem with our savings rate is too much money at the top, your policy options tend toward redistribution, so that most people can both spend more and save more - which also gives economists nightmares.

  23. BruceMcF Says:

    Its not any mysterious “some reason” that some countries are high saving countries and others low saving countries.

    Independent of individual desires to save, the total of private savings, across individuals and corporations, will be the level left over after starting with all injections into GDP and deducting imports and taxes.

    After all, increase in total savings requires new financial assets for those savings to go into … buying existing financial assets just shifts the savings around, it doesn’t increase the total amount.

    Government Payments less Tax Receipts (G-T) … that’s the amount of new government bonds and bills available to be held as financial assets.

    Business investment in plant and equipment, residential investment, and credit-financed consumption (I+Cd)… that’s the amount of newly created domestic private debt available to be held as financial assets.

    Exports less imports (NX), that’s the amount of capital outflows that will create overseas debt available to be held as financial assets.

    So in simple terms, national savings will be (G-T)+(EXP-IMP)+(I+Cd)

    With our massive structural trade deficit in the US, in the range of 5% during the recovery that ended December 2007, and slack investment, rather than acquiring financial assets from overseas, we are in growing debt to overseas creditors.

    The main question is whether households will end up with the savings or business firms in the form of corporate retained earnings. Given that corporations get the earnings upstream of of distributed corporate profits … which is the main balancing item in disposable income, especially for the portion of the population in a position to engage in substantial accumulation of financial wealth … if corporations elect to save an amount that is, in aggregate, close to the total possible amount of savings, there just isn’t going to be anything left over for households to save.

  24. Steven Attewell Says:

    DTM:

    You’re right, I’m being a bit unfair. There are plenty of liberal economists who are down with redistributive taxing and spending. However, even many liberal economists have too much a devotion to the idea that the income of the wealthy and not-wealthy is determined by supply and demand (exclusive of power relations), and therefore, you shouldn’t have pre-tax income redistribution.

  25. Mark Says:

    1. I’d be surprised if someone could find a respected economist of any political stripe who actually views tariffs as a good economic idea. I’m not saying that none exist, only that I haven’t heard of one. ‘Tariffs are bad’ is, to my knowledge, as close as it gets to a universal law of economics.
    2. I’m not sure about this: “The way this is “supposed” to work is that Chinese people, being poor but growing rapidly, consume more than they produce. The current accounts balance out because savers in rich countries should be investing money in China — building up China’s capital stock and so forth.” I’m sure Matt has a better basis for making this claim than I do for disagreeing, or maybe I’m missing the point, but to me this seems intuitively wrong - the purpose of investment in general is to get more value out of it than you put in…a manufacturer investing in capital stock is looking to take advantage of the developing countries low production costs in order to increase the manufacturer’s overall productivity - if the investment is only going to result in an equivalent amount of return, the manufacturer is better off investing elsewhere. Moreover, while the developing country will have rapid growth in consumption, the most rational place from which to get consumed goods is the place where they are least expensive (ie, the developing country itself).
    3. Finally (if you’ll forgive the shameless self-promotion), if we’re worried about trade deficits, this doesn’t help.

  26. Gene Says:

    The US $ has been falling pretty steadily for 40 years. There have been some periodic upward blips but a smoothed trend line is unambiguously steady decline. Conversely, the trade deficit-current account deficit has been pretty steadily increasing during this period, though I believe the latter is less pronounced when adjusted for inflation or as a % of GDP.

    Nevertheless, this is not the outcome (long term $ down, trade deficit up) that generally would be inferred from standard trade theory. However, that trade theory is really useful and lots of people understand it, so rather than ditch it or substantially modify it, we probably should just get a new set of facts.

  27. JonF Says:

    Re: However, even many liberal economists have too much a devotion to the idea that the income of the wealthy and not-wealthy is determined by supply and demand (exclusive of power relations), and therefore, you shouldn’t have pre-tax income redistribution.

    I don’t know how you can have (as a matter of deliberate policy) pre-tax redistribution. As a matter of pure logic you can’t redistribute something until it’s been distributed in the first place. But more importantly I can’t imagine any method of redistribution that doesn’t involve taxes, or some tax analogue.

  28. chrismealy Says:

    If I understand him correctly, James Galbraith argues that as a fact of accounting identities, we can never have a trade surplus as long as foreigners need a safe currency (dollars) to park money in. So as long as the world is on the dollar standard, we’re either going to have public debt or private debt, and we need to manage that debt responsibly. Either that or have capital controls.

  29. John Rosevear Says:

    Matt, many folks predicted — back in October — that the dollar would spike as assorted enormous piles of derivatives were unwound (requiring the purchase of dollars) and then resume its overall decline. Think of the value of the dollar as the share price of the US (in a stock market sense) — our economy is in a hole (near-term) and our market share is in decline (very long-term relative to Asia etc), so the dollar should be sinking some.

    Sure enough, the spike has reversed somewhat in recent days and various major currencies are once again climbing vs the dollar. So not only will the dollar fall, it already is falling. I expect that to continue, though it won’t be a crash so much as a gradual slide to something like last summer’s levels.

  30. JLS Says:

    “Basically, wealth in the hands of people who aren’t going to spend it - whether those ‘people’ are the Chinese government or our own ultra-rich - is growing faster than America’s or the world’s economy can grow and produce viable new investments. This imbalance is a real problem, and needs to be addressed.”

    Unequality in USA, and abroad, is a reason for misallocation of ressources, I mean bad investment.

  31. Pete Murphy Says:

    Our enormous trade deficit is rightly of growing concern to Americans. Since leading the global drive toward trade liberalization by signing the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, America has been transformed from the weathiest nation on earth - its preeminent industrial power - into a skid row bum, literally begging the rest of the world for cash to keep us afloat. It’s a disgusting spectacle. Our cumulative trade deficit since 1976, financed by a sell-off of American assets, exceeds $9 trillion. What will happen when those assets are depleted? Today’s recession may be just a preview of what’s to come.

    Why? The American work force is the most productive on earth. Our product quality, though it may have fallen short at one time, is now on a par with the Japanese. Our workers have labored tirelessly to improve our competitiveness. Yet our deficit continues to grow. Our median wages and net worth have declined for decades. Our debt has soared.

    Clearly, there is something amiss with “free trade.” The concept of free trade is rooted in Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage. In 1817 Ricardo hypothesized that every nation benefits when it trades what it makes best for products made best by other nations. On the surface, it seems to make sense. But is it possible that this theory is flawed in some way? Is there something that Ricardo didn’t consider?

    At this point, I should introduce myself. I am author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” My theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption begins to decline. This occurs because, as people are forced to crowd together and conserve space, it becomes ever more impractical to own many products. Falling per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.

    This theory has huge ramifications for U.S. policy toward population management (especially immigration policy) and trade. The implications for population policy may be obvious, but why trade? It’s because these effects of an excessive population density - rising unemployment and poverty - are actually imported when we attempt to engage in free trade in manufactured goods with a nation that is much more densely populated. Our economies combine. The work of manufacturing is spread evenly across the combined labor force. But, while the more densely populated nation gets free access to a healthy market, all we get in return is access to a market emaciated by over-crowding and low per capita consumption. The result is an automatic, irreversible trade deficit and loss of jobs, tantamount to economic suicide.

    One need look no further than the U.S.’s trade data for proof of this effect. Using 2006 data, an in-depth analysis reveals that, of our top twenty per capita trade deficits in manufactured goods (the trade deficit divided by the population of the country in question), eighteen are with nations much more densely populated than our own. Even more revealing, if the nations of the world are divided equally around the median population density, the U.S. had a trade surplus in manufactured goods of $17 billion with the half of nations below the median population density. With the half above the median, we had a $480 billion deficit!

    Our trade deficit with China is getting all of the attention these days. But, when expressed in per capita terms, our deficit with China in manufactured goods is rather unremarkable - nineteenth on the list. Our per capita deficit with other nations such as Japan, Germany, Mexico, Korea and others (all much more densely populated than the U.S.) is worse. My point is not that our deficit with China isn’t a problem, but rather that it’s exactly what we should have expected when we suddenly applied a trade policy that was a proven failure around the world to a country with one fifth of the world’s population.

    Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage is overly simplistic and flawed because it does not take into consideration this population density effect and what happens when two nations grossly disparate in population density attempt to trade freely in manufactured goods. While free trade in natural resources and free trade in manufactured goods between nations of roughly equal population density is indeed beneficial, just as Ricardo predicts, it’s a sure-fire loser when attempting to trade freely in manufactured goods with a nation with an excessive population density.

    If you‘re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, then I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com and PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in the blog discussion and, of course, buy the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)

    Please forgive me for the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph, but I don’t know how else to inject this new theory into the debate about trade without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.

    Pete Murphy
    Author, “Five Short Blasts”

  32. unlawflcombatnt Says:

    Despite all the myths about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, it contributed almost nothing to the Great Depression. To begin with exports prior to Smoot-Hawley accounted for only 5% of our GDP. But there was a -46% fall in GDP from 1929 to 1934, but only a -3% decline in exports.

    When the decline in imports is added back into GDP, there was less than 1/2% decline in GDP due to a worsening trade deficit during that time.

    Smoot-Hawley had nothing to do with the Great Depression, simply because trade was such a small part of our economy. The primary consumer of American-produced goods were Americans. Reducing the trickle of exports we had in 1929 made no difference on the course of the Great Depression.

    Someone should write a book titled “The Myth of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff,” because all the alleged damage it caused is pure fantasy.

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