[expat_panama]

Throughout the 1990s, even in years of budget surpluses, the current account was growing.

The problem here might be that most people don't know that the current account is what pundits call the "trade deficit", but those same pundits won't add that it's always paid for by a capital surplus.

[1rudeboy]

People also don’t realize that the quickest way to cut the trade deficit is to have a recession.

[NVDave]

I have to quibble here: the current account is computed as:

trade balance + net foreign income + net unilateral transfer payments

The trade deficit is only the first component here.

[Will88]

The trade deficit is by far the biggest component of the current account balance. For a quick look at the US current account in 2007, go all the way to the bottom of the list of nations:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_cur_acc_bal-economy-current-account-balance

I don’t see the components of that -$731,200,000,000.00 current account balance for 2007, but it’s probably linked somewhere in that website.