I never said that. You said it. You own it. LOL!
...when former CEA Chairman N. Gregory Mankiw's powerpoint clearly demonstrates how net exports are exactly equal to net capital outlfow (as is the case in China with us)...
Clearly you continue to misunderstand what Mankiw's ppt details. In fact, he is showing that GDP=C+I+G+NX.
So when Net Exports goes negative...GDP goes down. And that isn't the only thing.
So, Joe, if you subscribe to the theory that Net Capital Outflow = Net Exports , NCO=NX.... then you have to also accept Mankiw's claim that National Savings "S" = I + NCO (where I = Domestic Investment). Which means national savings "S" must also go down when NX (presumed equal to NCO) turns negative. There is no "requirement" either (as you previously opined) that "I" has to increase to balance the negative number.
Here is where I think you ran off the rails. Manckiw nowhere claims his equations have to maintain a static balance to maintain either savings or GDP. So a decline in savings results when NCO is reversed. Ergo, a trade imbalance is definitionally a dissavings... E.g., in plainer english... the country running a trade deficit loses national savings.
Capital inflow (Negative NCO) is not savings. In fact, it reduces it, and weakens our country. Your key misunderstanding and confusion.
I spotted your intellectual mistake a while back...you confuse net wealth for capital. It is not. Mankiw makes clear his position that it is merely additive to it...and in the case of a trade deficit, (negative NX) his equation, if prescriptive, means a Negative NCO...which subtracts from national savings...net wealth.
To try and further clarify Mankiw's equations, I would note that they are descriptive, not prescriptive. E.g., in the case of a negative NX, Capital inflow is not in fact, mandatory. It is, however, what is necessary for a balance to occur in the equation...but it doesn't have to be staticly balanced. It is a fluid, dynamic set of relationships...where any one variable is deformable...or discretionary. China, for example, doesn't have to buy our T-Bills...or any other debt instruments...nor do they have to buy any other assets of the U.S. All while merrily continuing to engage in a unilateral trade surplus against the U.S. [ Which according to Mankiw's equations directly increases their GDP, and Savings].
You previously evaded coming to grips with my posts and never responded to my earlier discovery that Mankiw explicitly observed in Image 19 and 20 that U.S. Domestic investment and national savings are collapsing with the trade deficit.
Explain those away. Your understanding of Mankiw's ppt was only partial...
And you have proved you don't know what you don't know. And that you are unwilling to learn.
If by "net exports going negative" you mean the trade deficit is increasing . . . the last time folks were howling about the trade deficit increasing was during the Reagan Administration, and our G.D.P. rose consistently and at a near constant rate during that period.
Yes, and in spite of NX working against GDP (or Y), the I increases, as does the C, to the point where it offsets and, in fact, eclipses the drag that the negative NX created. That's the whole point of this study that I keep dragging out and that you keep failing to read. That's the reason why people trade with one another...to make themselves better off. They do not trade with one another to, as you believe, make themselves worse off. Yet that's the stupid argument that you keep trying to debate and I, and others, keep telling you that you're incorrect.
Did I ever claim that "I" alone offsets "NX"? No, because I believe that I wrote that "I" and "C" increased to offset and exceed the drain that the "NX" created.
Want more evidence that you'll either never check into [or, if you did, still fail to understand]? Look at this table from the BEA. Manipulate the data by selecting the "annual" option and by checking "get all years". Pay close attention to relationships in lines #6, #13, #2, and then finally #1. Now, you may suggest that #1 grows (and would grow) in spite of the drag created from #13, which is a fair enough proposition from someone who too challenged to see the real costs (opportunity costs) in any situation that stares them in the face. But then what do you say about the Griswold study (partially inspired by my data on the relationship between trade deficits and GDP which you've read at least a couple of times now but have only admitted to recently).
But, don't just look at this empirically. Let's look at it from a gut-check perspective. Let's do as you enjoy doing and look at this thing anecdotally. In this bit of folly, go back to the last little bit of blurb in the block quote - the reason why people trade with each other and then explain that one away.
True!
In fact, it reduces it, and weakens our country. Your key misunderstanding and confusion.
Really, it weakens our country? Then why would you also complain if capital were to flow the other way? If Americans started buying Chinese debt and the domestic market started to hemorrhage jobs because growth started to slow because the "I" and "C" decreased. Maybe you wouldn't complain...maybe you'd enjoy seeing America's prosperity take a hit. No matter, I'm sure that you'd find something else to prattle on about without fully understanding the subject matter at hand.