[frankthetank]

Back the train up...My canned goods are old soviet tanks? God I hope they weren't used near atomic testing!

This is just mind bloggling (trade deficit) because of the amount of grain we produce. THe weak US dollar might help?

[PhilBiker]

I wonder how much grain and corn is prohibited by most country's refusal to import GMO foods?

[ararboin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ack the train up...My canned goods are old soviet tanks? God I hope they weren't used near atomic testing!

[WebHubbleTelescope]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ararboin', 'A')nd don't forget to include all the extra pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals those countries are allowed to drench their crops with over and above what this country allows.

[0mar]

Actually, I think most fertilizers are synthesized from natural gas.

Also, GMO crops are good. Most express natural pesticides and are less fastidious in their nutriotional requirements (its 4:30am, leave me be on spelling )

[savethehumans]

Oh, yes, and the life span of the world's natural gas supplies are sooooo much longer than that of oil....

It's about over for the Industrial Agriculture age. And if GMO seed wins out, it may be about over for agriculture, period. GMOs overwhelm all other strains of crops...and as soon as the pests that GMOs are "programmed" to resist develop immunity to the "program"--well, there goes the food supply. Food banks, with their seeds? Well, maybe--if untainted, arable land can be found (or basic greenhouses built), and the die-off kills off enough people for that tiny supply of seeds to be enough to feed everyone, and raiders don't steal anything a community can manage to grow, and....

Ah, the race to build a new civilization on the ruins of the old one vs. the time needed to do it--what fun! Perhaps we should make a reality show out of it! Oh, wait, that IS gonna be reality....never mind.

[The_Virginian]

Omar,

My cousin, you should check out : http://organicconsumers.org/gelink.html

So far GMO soya is a failure, as the pests just resist even more of the "Roundup" pesticide, that the "round up ready Soya" was made to withstand MORE use of. (that is MORE pesticides per crop..)

Other BT/GMO corn just proves to be poisinous for humans as well ( eg "Starlink" or the Pharmacutical maize).

So what will be the end of the GMO experament poisined soils and crops?

[MonteQuest]

The trade deficit figues were released today showing a goods and services deficit of $55.5 billion, compared with $50.9 billion in September, revised. The consensus forecast was -$53.5bn, so a number almost 4% larger than that is a bit of a shocker. These numbers show that a falling dollar will not bring down the deficit as long as imports are off the charts.

In case you're wondering, -$55.5bn is indeed a new all-time record, beating the old record of -$55.3bn standing since all of four months ago. The last five months have seen deficits of over $50bn, and the eleven largest monthly deficits have occurred in the last eleven months. Thus far the overall trade deficit is 21% larger than in 2003 and 48% larger than in 2002. And you can hardly blame high oil prices alone for the non-petroleum goods balance in October fell to -$42.6bn, it's second largest figure ever. "Insatiable" doesn't even begin to describe the United States' gaping import maw. We could easily see the trade deficit grow to 6% of GDP by the end of this year!

So, now what? Well, just what I have been saying, protectionist measures:
U.S. Imposes New Curbs on Clothing Imports
Barriers Are Intended to Curtail Chinese Shipments; Plan Roils Textile Industry
The new rules, scheduled to be published today in the Federal Register, were posted in recent days on a government Web site. Word of their impending imposition has stirred anger among clothing retailers and importers, who contend that the barriers contravene an international agreement to open the worldwide textile trade starting in 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer

[0mar]

I think your avatar is an apt description of the United States as a whole.

Twilight. Unfortunately, I don't think we will go without a bang....

[marek]

The worsening of the deficit is paradoxically associated with the decline of the dollar.While in the long run that may (or may not) improve the situation, in the short run it always worsens the deficit (the phenomenon is called the J-curve).



$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')"A lot of businesses have locked-in contracts," said Charles Engel, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin. Because prices and quantities of imports and exports are fixed in advance, it may take months or even years for companies to react to the dollar's downward drift.


What happens is that, because quantities are slow to adjust, the devaluation causes the total value of exports to decrease (and visa-versa for imports) and thus we get an initial increase in the trade deficit.

[seb]

Ok, suppose the deficit stays at 50b$ a month for a while. How long do you think the world wide economy can deal with this? several years? more? Still 4 years of G.W. Bush, do you expect any change in his administration policy if they face an imminent currency crash?

How big could be the impact on the yen and the euro? I mean, I am an european living in Japan and here we really know the impact of very weak dollar : this will almost crash european and japanese economies...

Many people say that we are still not out from the internet bubble (4 years behind us now) consequences : we transfered the problem elsewhere and it is even bigger. Is that true?

[shortonoil]

Question; at what point does this monetary financial house of cards come crashing down? Lets start a pool. The winner gets to burn all the money to keep warm next winter!

[marek]

and in fact the deficit may continue at such a ridiculously high rate as long as the U.S. treats the rest of the world as its manufacturing base. This year, I bought myself a HP laptop which, to my bewilderment, was made in China. That's sick. Even the new GM models such as the fuel-efficient Chevy Aveo are produced in Korea. Switching back to domestic production will be very hard once all the machinery is abroad and the liquidation of foreign direct investment in countries such as China is not an easy thing to do. The deficit may well persist even with a declining dollar, resulting in inflation and falling real purchasing power. Since the financial community has inflation phobia, Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan (or whoever succeeds him) would be forced to raise interest rates, to the further plight of a typical American, who is in debt to his/her eyeballs

[savethehumans]

Just underscores the FACT that the "experts" make their predictions according to what has happened in such situations in the past. The problem, of course, is what we are facing (economic collapse, peak oil and gas, and climate change costs) has never happened like this before, nor at near-simultaneous times, and so their predictions are, and will continue to be, speculation falling short of the true outcome. They will soon be nursing drinks at the bar during Happy Hour, along with the meterologists!

Come to think of it, we could ask the Magic 8-Ball what's gonna happen next, with odds equal to, if not better than, what "experts" are saying these days!

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seb', 'O')k, suppose the deficit stays at 50b$ a month for a while. How long do you think the world wide economy can deal with this? several years? more? Still 4 years of G.W. Bush, do you expect any change in his administration policy if they face an imminent currency crash?

How big could be the impact on the yen and the euro? I mean, I am an european living in Japan and here we really know the impact of very weak dollar : this will almost crash european and japanese economies...

Many people say that we are still not out from the internet bubble (4 years behind us now) consequences : we transfered the problem elsewhere and it is even bigger. Is that true?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('marek', ' ')Switching back to domestic production will be very hard once all the machinery is abroad and the liquidation of foreign direct investment in countries such as China is not an easy thing to do.

[ohanian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seb', 'O')k, suppose the deficit stays at 50b$ a month for a while. How long do you think the world wide economy can deal with this? several years? more? Still 4 years of G.W. Bush, do you expect any change in his administration policy if they face an imminent currency crash?

How big could be the impact on the yen and the euro? I mean, I am an european living in Japan and here we really know the impact of very weak dollar : this will almost crash european and japanese economies...

Many people say that we are still not out from the internet bubble (4 years behind us now) consequences : we transfered the problem elsewhere and it is even bigger. Is that true?

[tdrive]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ogic dictates that...

[Pops]

Actually, if you went back and priced the DJA, S&P and NASDAQ in Euros, we have never recovered from the dot-com crash according to George at www.urbansurvival.com who had a chart posted last week (don’t know if it’s still there). His chart showed a high of over 12000 a low of around 5500 and around 6500 now. Just more feel-good printing press magic.

I would have thought a little bump in interest would have helped the US$ but it’s off again, I guess they already knew that was coming.

Also from George who says this is a deflation indicator: http://www.nypost.com/business/36023.htm
Electronics prices are taking a big dive and retailers are discounting even more.

[smiley]

I'm surprised by these numbers. I would expect some effect of the cheap dollar. Just some random thoughts.

The currency devaluation has no effect on the trade with Japan and China because they devaluate their currency just as fast.

What is surprising is that the trade gap with Europe reached a new record. The import from Europe to the US should be hurt by the high Euro. perhaps the low dollar is unable to make up for the anti-american sentiment in Europe. From what I see people especially in France and Germany are less inclined to buy US products.

About the J-curve. The dollar has been sliding for well over four years now without affecting the trade deficit. I think that is far too long to attribute it to a delay factor in pricing.

And the measures that are taken to protect the national industry. So far we've seen a number of these measures and they haven't been able to sort any effect. The steel embargo to protect the US steel industry only led to steel shortages on the US markets. Besides the WTO will probably condemn this action, which implies that other countries will take countermeasures.