It ain't necessarily so

摘要

AMERICA'S president has a winners-and-losers perspective on most, perhaps all, transactions. He thus believes that persistent trade deficits are by definition a problem. This is wrong. The willingness of other countries to send America more stuff than America sends back to them has meant that for most of the past four decades Americans have been able to consume more than they produce. That is, without question, a good position to be in. It also means that America owes money to the rest of the world, in the form of low-yield bonds. The rest of the world likes holding these, and America benefits from selling them. Americans earn more on their foreign investments than foreigners earn on American bonds.