Trade Deficits

—By Kevin Drum

| Tue Jan. 13, 2009 9:48 AM PST

TRADE DEFICITS....Atrios comments on our financial predicament:

As all good economists "know," one day our trade gap will have to shrink....

I wonder what those scare quotes are supposed to mean? Is it a way of suggesting that the conventional wisdom about trade deficits is wrong? That economists are idiots? Perhaps a comment on the ultimate ineffability of true knowledge? What? Sometimes it's like trying to decipher Peking wall posters over there.

Get Mother Jones by Email - Free. Like what you're reading? Get the best of MoJo three times a week.

Photo Essays + Slideshows

Can You Spot the Future Americans?

A mosaic of immigrant ID photos.

Chernobyl, 25 Years On

Radiation checkpoints. Contaminated mushrooms. A quarter century after the meltdown, meet the families who chose to stay.

India's Girl Effect

Are microloans the best 21st century birth control device? A photo essay.

America's Top 10 Polluters

The EPA releases a database of greenhouse gas sources. Is there a global warmer in your backyard?

See All