[Toddsterpatriot]

USA trade deficit in 2004: $665.9 billion
Japan trade surplus in 2004: 18.59 trillion yen ($180 billion)

So now trade surplus or deficit is the indicator of a successful or failed economy?

How about the Japanese federal deficit?

Budget:
revenues: $1.327 trillion
expenditures: $1.646 trillion,
Public debt: 154.6% of GDP (2003)

Japan

Compared to ours.

Budget:
revenues: $1.782 trillion
expenditures: $2.156 trillion,
Public debt: 62.4% of GDP (2003)

USA

Boy, that pragmatic (not ideological) national policy combining market and well calibrated government intervention sure is expensive. And all it got you since 1990 was 1.6% growth? Maybe they should try something new?

[A. Pole]

So now trade surplus or deficit is the indicator of a successful or failed economy?

I assume you you wanted to ask if the "trade surplus or deficit AND UNEMPLOYMENT is the indicator"? Because I gave you both. You must have ommitted it by a mistake.

Now, let us make a mental experiment. Imagine that Japan would get the half of continent with huge resources, good climate etc ... would it have a good effect on the economy? And then imagine that Americans lost ther land and were forced to live on overcrowded, mountainous without any resources. I believe that it would crippleAmerican economy very severly.

How would than Japanes and American economies would compare? My point is that taking into account what Japan was given by fortune, Japane is doing much much better and so the Japanese economical policy is second to none.