Do you understand how net worth is calculated? It's simply assets minus liabilities. Our family net worth is currently about $51 trillion, which is double what it was just a decade ago.
Federal Funds Report (page 110)
National debt again at an all time high.
Yes, I've heard we have a large external debt. It's about $8.1 trillion which equals about $27,000 for every American. This is up about $295 in the last year.
So now we understand the debt. Let's talk about assets. American households have assets of $66 trillion. That's $220,735 per person? Our assets are up almost $7,000 in the past year.
Would you be willing to give up $295 in debt to pick up $7,000 in assets? If so you'd have a profit of around $6,705.
Personal savings is at an all time low.
Did you know that 401K contributions are not considered savings? Also, Government methodology understates income and overstate expenses mostly because it does not count capital gains from the sale of stocks or homes as part of disposable income, but it does count capital gains taxes as expenditures.
The U.S. Treasury data shows that Americans have earned more than $3.5 trillion in capital gains since 1997. This is more than the combined gains of the preceding 20 years. All that money has to be coming from somewhere.
In a recent Bear Stearns report on savings, David Malpass (NRO financial writer and Bear Stearns chief economist) shows per capita assets in the U.S. of $89,800 that make us the top saving country in the world. (Japan is second at $76,900 per head.)
It now takes two incomes to have all that wealth when in 1975 there was a large percentage of one income earners.
Nonsense. Since 1973 real per capita disposable income has soared from $17,727 to the current $26,725.
Japan/china vs the USA are two that come to mind we have trade deficits with each country. Taiwan also trade deficit.
Maybe you should begin by explaining why a trade deficit is bad. We've had a trade deficit for 30 years now. The last time we had a trade surplus was during a recession. Our per capita GDP and standard of living are higher than any of the countries you mention. If a trade deficit is bad then where does our economy show the negative impact? GDP growth, employment growth, income growth, productivity growth? Where is the bad news? We manufacture and export more now than at any other time in our history.
I.e we have a net lose of weatlh from this country to those country.
Our economy is larger than any of those countries you mentioned. Our per capita GDP is larger than any of those countries. Do you think that economics is a zero sum game? If so, where's your proof?
Our technology edge is gone because we traded it away for nothing in return..\
More nonsense. We still lead the world in just about every area of technology.
our military edge is shrinking because the free unrestricted trade with China is allowing them to jump decades ahead in technology in mere years.
China's military has a long way to go to even come close to ours. They have a lot of hurdles to overcome between now and then.
You can not compete with someone making .50 cents an hour no matter how much productivity you have especially when you are exporting those productivity improvements so the .50 an hour person will become as productive as you in the next few years.
Yet we continue to make and export more now than at any other time. Our industrial production is up more than 50% since 1992 and real earnings are also increasing. Looks like we're competing just fine against the people you say we can't compete with. Maybe you should learn some more about productivity before making statements like the above.
The WTO gives countries little say in the country to country conditions of trade.
I'd add GATT to your reading list as well because you don't understand the WTO.
We have ceded our interests to a world body that could care less about nation states, individuals freedom, etc etc.
Ahh, the old loss of sovereignty argument. Funny, you protectionists can never seem to identify anything specific that clearly demonstrates where we have lost any of our sovereignty. Are you familiar with the Canadian softwood debate?
Most manufactured goods come form outside countries and are assembled here
More feelings? I thought all those low skilled assembly jobs were the ones being shipped overseas in 40 ft. containers.
What will we do in a time of war. Order our parts from Brazil?
We've been unable to source the products we need for the war in Iraq? It's a strong economy that gives us a superior military. You offer lots of opinions in your post but nothing to back anything up. You should learn more about trade and our economy then you wouldn't be so afraid of things that don't exist.
