How the Trade Deficit Affects You

Trade Deficit: The means through which foreign countries are able to own and control our consumption.

Trade deficits are just like other debts in many respects. They must be repaid. When our country buys more than it sells from other countries, these other countries accept our dollars. These dollars must eventually return to the U.S. and be exchanged for something of value. Since we are producing less and less, in all likelihood, the trillions of dollars will come back to buy our assets and wealth producing companies. This has resulted in many of our core industries now being controlled and managed for the benefit of foreign companies and countries.

These loans by foreign governments have given them leverage over our decisions, forcing us to enter into agreements with them to allow them to control our key assets (technology, ports, natural resources, etc.). In fact, these loans place us in a disadvantageous position in all our negotiations abroad. Witness our inability to offset China’s currency manipulation that is making it nearly impossible for American exporters to compete.

Full Story: How the Trade Deficit Affects You | Economy In Crisis.

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  • Thom’s Blog
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    If we don't change our ways soon...

    A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."
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    -Thom
    (Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.)
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