On the U.S. trade deficit

I'm making this argument here for the last time.  THERE IS NO TRADE DEFICIT. 

As long as a trade isn't the result of theft, deception, fraud or government mandate (pardon all the redundancies), all trade is balanced.  There are no surpluses; there are no deficits. 

I give Starbucks $2.12 and they give me a double-espresso. 

They buy no freight or warehousing services from me. 

China provides me with fruitstand components.  I provide China with pieces of paper that have Benjamin Franklin's picture on them.  It's balanced. 

And there's only one place where you can swap Benjamins for other goods and services. 

That would be in the USA, or with someone who will eventually spend them in the USA. 

It's always balanced. 

Those who claim otherwise have ulterior motives. 

Thanks for listening. 

A quick note from the author

I haven't had time to post anything on this site in the last eight days. 

I'm chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.  We're in a bit of a struggle within the Texas LP, primarily because of Tom and Kathie Glass, Republican Carpetbaggers from Houston.  (They're married to each other, and deserve the honor....) 

Kathie hopes to win the LP nomination for governor of Texas. 

When we had our Precinct Conventions last Tuesday night, about 17 people walked in that I'd never seen before, or had seen only once.  They were obviously there to deny our long-time Libertarian activists a chance to go to our State Convention in April.  That's because Tarrant County (Fort Worth) has a lot of "lifer" Libertarians who've seen Tom and Kathie in action for the last four years or so.  Therefore, very few of us who are active will ever support either Tom or Kathie for any office.  We know them.  It's a long, tiresome story that I'll post sometime between now and our State Convention. 

I had to go into full-blown "Barbarians At The Gates" mode to keep the Glasses from taking over the County Party, and it worked.  Our slate of delegates had an overwhelming victory.  To make it better, the Glasses of Houston were there for the event.  (Don't ask me why they felt it was their business to infiltrate a Tarrant County Convention.)

I believe they had some limited success with this type of behavior in Denton County, but nowhere else. 

We had some great people show up for the first time at our County Convention.  I hope they'll come back, despite having been used as pawns by the Glasses.  If they continue to show up and help out, they can be delegates to their hearts' content.  This is the first year I haven't had to beg people to go. 

Once we get the video, I'll post a few snippets of Tom Glass, the Houston interloper, slithering back and forth in the aisles, whispering instructions and passing notes to his unfortunate surrogate.   And both of them GETTING IT WRONG!!  Tom, you can't just add 11 additional delegates to a slate of 16 delegates when there are only 16 spots in the delegation !!!  Good Lord in heaven, man!!  You're a freakin' lawyer !!!

Anyway, I have a District Convention to orchestrate this Saturday.  Once that's over with, I'll be back to posting regularly.  I've missed it.  I've seen a dramatic dropoff in ad revenue from this site, and I miss that money, too ! 

I don't know who put it together, but this Kathie video is pretty funny if you know the back-story. 



Click here to return to my April Fool's Day endorsement of Kathie Glass for governor.