On Trade Deficits and Global Imbalances

…December exports of $142.7 billion and imports of $182.9 billion
resulted in a goods and services deficit of $40.2 billion…

The Census Bureau

Via Calculated Risk

We were taught in Economics 101
that countries could not for long sustain large ever-growing trade deficits.

…our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family
that possesses an immense farm.

In order to consume 4% more than they produce,
that's the trade deficit,
we have, day by day been both selling pieces of the farm
and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.

Warren Buffett

Did the leaders of most emerging economies
essentially steal their citizens’ savings
by lending money to developed economies
to keep currency exchange rates relatively low
to encourage more sales of manufactured goods?