Let's hope so.
Yes. When trade is balanced, they are equal. I do know in fact that the Northern states tended to run a trade deficit, while the Southern states were usually balanced in trade debt.
We could go through all the trade deficits for the years from 1800 to 1860, (which I have done when BroJoeK brought it up a long time ago) but it all ends up being roughly equal over time.
No two nations are going to keep a large trade imbalance indefinitely. At some point, the nation that is getting the short end of the stick will object, and so trade imbalances roughly average out over time, especially in this era when real money meant something.
So can we dispense with hairsplitting on the difference between imports and exports? People who understand economics recognize that these numbers roughly balance over time, so one is a pretty good proxy for the other if you look at the larger picture.
I am not a statistician, but one doesn't have to be to understand that you are wrong.
That's because only someone who wasn't a statistician would think i'm wrong. statisticians understand that trade deficits average to zero over time.
We aren't trying to get down to dollars and cents here. We aren't even trying to get this accurate to a million dollars here. We are trying to get it roughly accurate for a ~300 million dollar per year trade exchange, so let's not focus on effects that have trivial consequences within the scope of the entire picture.
Do me the courtesy of reading and trying to understand what I wrote and don't ask for numbers that only an expert could give you.
How much of an expert do you have to be to total up trade deficits in an import/export exchange? Maybe BroJoeK will post a link to that book he posted a year or so ago, and we can go back through and look at the year to year totals.
I went through the whole thing, and the numbers did not yield the results BroJoeK was trying to argue for.
Now i'm kicking myself for not saving a link to it.
Let's hope so.