I have yet to hear a Bushie express anxiety about the trade deficit. The fact that "foreigners" own more U.S. assets might mean little to the Bushies if they own the foreigners.
mbs A paranoid thought: what if George Bush's efforts to create a US-dominated world government is an effort to change this? Now that the US external debt is increasingly gigantic, if the US government can get taxing power over the rest of the world... it would be a little like when the various states joined the US union back in the 1780s and were able to get the Federal government to help them with their debts. On the other hand, the US already the ability to reduce its external debt via inflation, since that debt is almost entirely denominated in dollars. Another question: do pen-l people agree with Baker that "The cause of the [2001 U.S.] recession was the collapse of the stock market bubble"? I'd say that the popping of the bubble was only the _proximate_ cause, as in 1929, but that the U.S. economy was riding for a fall. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
