[LowCountryJoe]

You're right Willie, it's even better than this, typically. The foreigners generally buy our debt which gives American entrepreneurs easy rates at which to expand or start businesses, for people to achieve home ownership, or for consumers to buy things like cars now - at low rates - and pay for them later when the real cost of tomorrow's dollars is less.

For their part, foreigners who hold these debt instruments cannot just simply bail out of their positions when (or if) rates rise: if they did they'd take a bath with the losses. And if rates rose, new investors would rotate money in from other positions in order to seek better yields.

It's emotional knee-jerkers like you who usually end up on the wrong sides of rotated money - selling when you should be buying and buying when you should be selling. I tell you what I'll be doing, I'll be waiting for idiots like Dobbs, Tollenson, and Buchanan to finally admit that things are good. When that day comes, I'll be the one who sours. In fact, these are the same guys who are 'in on' the joke: I wonder how much money they make off of scaring people like you...just like how the union leaders have mastered the concept for decades.

[1rudeboy]

No doubt (it's "Tonelson," btw). As soon as those three stooges exclaim that things are good, it'll be a sure sign that the end times are upon us.

[Willie Green]

It's emotional knee-jerkers like you who usually end up on the wrong sides of rotated money -

LOL! "rotated money"!!!
Is that what you money-laundering con-artists call it when it comes out of your spin cycle?

"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country."

-- President Andrew Jackson - (1824)

[Toddsterpatriot]

Here are the facts:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the measure of the USA's output of goods and services, is calculated by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis using the following items:

• Personal consumption expenditures: Personal consumption expenditures are far and away the largest and tends to be the most stable of the four expenditures, averaging about 65-70% of gross domestic product.
• Gross private domestic investment: Expenditures on capital goods to be used for productive activities in the domestic economy that are undertaken by the business sector during a given time period. Gross private domestic investment tends to be the least stable of the four expenditures, averaging between 12-18% of gross domestic product.
• NET EXPORTS OF GOODS AND SERVICES Net exports of goods and services is the smallest of the four expenditures, averaging around 2% of gross domestic product. Unlike the other expenditures, net exports of goods and services can be either positive or negative. They are positive when exports are greater than imports (Trade Surplus) and negative when exports are less than imports (Trade Deficit). In recent years, net exports of goods and services have been negative.
• Government consumption expenditures and gross investment measures government purchases undertaken by the government sector. Government consumption expenditures and gross investment averages between 15-20% of gross domestic product. This percentage tends to be ebb and flow a little with the political winds.

The BEA News Release for FOURTH QUARTER 2005 provides us with the following current data for these items. (Seasonally adjusted at annual rates)

Gross domestic product (GDP)............................. $12,735.3 billion
Personal consumption expenditures.......................... 8,926.9 (70.10% of GDP)
Gross private domestic investment.......................... 2,185.7 (17.16% of GDP)
Net exports of goods and services........................... -784.1 (-6.16% of GDP)
Government consumption expenditures and gross investment... 2,406.8 (18.90% of GDP)

The current BALANCE OF TRADE is in deficit, which is considered unfavorable.
That is why it is SUBTRACTED from the other factors used to calculate GDP.

And at historic highs, it diminishes our domestic economy by over 6% - more than twice the normal variation. This is NOT insignificant.

Willie looking at half of the equation

The above shows why Willie is always wrong. He looks at net exports of goods and services and sees a negative number. In his one dimensional thinking that means that imports are bad. With Willie there's no Thinking Beyond Stage One.

If he did, he'd realize that those pesky foreigners take their new dollars and either add to our private domestic investment (Which adds to our GDP Willie), buy Treasuries which funds Government consumption expenditures and gross investment (Which adds to our GDP Willie) and allows Americans to use their dollars to consume (Which adds to our GDP Willie) or invest (Which adds to our GDP Willie).

It's not Willie's fault, even educated men like Paul Craig Roberts and Alan Tonelson don't understand.

[Moonman62]

You're right Willie, it's even better than this, typically. The foreigners generally buy our debt which gives American entrepreneurs easy rates at which to expand or start businesses, for people to achieve home ownership, or for consumers to buy things like cars now - at low rates - and pay for them later when the real cost of tomorrow's dollars is less.

They buy a whole lot of our government debt, and that's encouraging a whole lot of reckless government growth. I wonder why the article didn't mention that.