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I apologize, I did not intend my answer to come across as nasty. My point to you is: prove how having a trade deficit is necessarily a bad thing. The US has had trade deficits for decades, yet we have also had the best economy in the world (whether the US economy is up or down) for most of that time as well.

Regardless of the trade deficit, the US has created more jobs than it has ever lost, and most importantly -- prospered. By whatever yardstrick you use, the standard of living in the US is better than anywhere else -- regardless of the trade deficit.

I'm not an economics history buff, so could you provide a comparison of countries that addressed a trade deficit (in the manner of your choosing -- raised tariffs, lowered them, whatever). What happened to their trade deficits and what happened to their economy?

Your pet issue might be to focus on trade deficits, but until you specify exactly what your problem is I'm not going to waste my time solving what you percieve to be a problem.

I'll tell you what, here's an honest solution to solve your problem with the US trade deficit. Raise tariffs to whatever corporations and labor unions want. Then US corporations will be able to simply keep raising the price of their goods without ever having to improve efficiency.

Overall, this will help some rich fat cats and labor goons while the ordinary joe and jane have to get along with paying more for inferior products.

Soon, almost everyone but the wealthy and the political powerful will be worse off -- but the trade deficit will be solved. That's your goal, right?