All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Economics: It's not just whats' in your wallet

The final component of demand is net exports. In the past 40 years, exports and imports have been growing nearly 4 times as fast as total income, evidence of the internationalization of the US and world economies. Of the two, imports have been growing more rapidly so that the net surplus that was equal to .4 percent of GNP in 1950 has been transformed into a trade deficit exceeding 1% of GNP in 1990. As for the composition of the trade flows, in 1990, the large majority of US exports were nonagricultural products and of these, nearly 50% were exported to Canada and Western Europe and 11% to Japan. With regards to non-oil imports, which represented the vast majority of US imports, approximately 44% came from Canada and Western Europe and 20% from Japan. The cause of the current concern with trade problems with Japan is also evident in these data. In 1990, if we ignore oil imports and agricultural exports, the US was experiencing a total deficit of $87 billion, more than 57% of which was the deficit with Japan.

Add to Your Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Simpy Spurl Y! MyWeb - StumbleUpon