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I'll try and tackle this so that it makes sense. The reason why you may have seen one of us "tariff free traders" on both optimistic sides of the same argument is because the trade deficit is truly a neutral thing and we are only responding to the comments that are made by those who really lack an understanding of what's happening - those same people who take the pessimistic side of every single trade related bit of news no matter what direction its coming from.

Let's be clear here, in economics there truly is no such thing as a free lunch because there's always an opportunity cost or alternative that has its own sets of pros & cons. If the board's protectionists are seemingly always discussing the cons of an economic activity (or outcome), who do you suppose is going to provide the balance (and education) to the discussion? That's why I used to engage you but now it's lost its fun for me I'd been reduced to being a broken record.

I, myself, have grown tired of the arguments and have stopped participating. I have my own preference on the trade issue and if I had to choose between deficit and surplus in the current account, I'd choose deficit. I'd choose deficit because it would mean, through an accounting identity, that our capital account would be in surplus and, since foreigners typically buy our debt instruments (relative to the proportions of equity securities and property assets they buy), they fund our economic expansion...that is until the cycle is broken and the trend does a 180.

Sixmil, I have found myself on the other side of many discussions with you and I don't think that you are informed enough about the benefits of free(er) trade. Please consider reading a very short book - done in a story-telling format - that will help for you to see (if only briefly) the other side of the argument. If you'd like, I'll offer the book for sale for $.50 on Amazon.com Marketplace. When I send you the book, if you choose to purchase it, I'll enclose five bucks for your efforts (and to offset the transaction costs & shipping that arise). You'll have to send me a private message through FR so that we can set up a time for me to offer it for sale because I want to know that it'll be you that "let the book go" to at that price and with five bucks inside.

The book's info can be found here. I look forward to hearing from you one way or the other. Make sure to check out the reader reviews to see if this even interests you.

If I were advocating trade surpluses then I would have no problem being called a protectionist. Can you appreciate the difference between someone who advocates surpluses and someone like me who would like to see no deficits or surpluses? I'm not anti-trade, I just think we should be self-sufficient to some degree.

I sail out of the port of LA every weekend and I see very little going out besides scrap steel. It's hard to imagine this is the trade activity of an advanced nation.

Why are surplus and deficit the only choices. If I threw in a 3rd choice - balanced trade - would you still choose deficits?

I think I am informed on the benefits of trade. The benefits of trade deficits however, still elude me. Does this Ricardo -does-Broadway book explain the benefits of large and growing trade deficits? If memory serves, I don't think any of the classic free traders embraced or even imagined the scenario people on your side call free trade.