> ravi quoted Michael Mandel of BW (who I believe is a Dollars & Sense alum):
> >If MFP keeps rising at this rate--if Americans keep finding ways to work
> >smarter and to advantage of new technology--then the trade and budget
> >deficits are fairly irrelevant.

On 8/30/05, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
> If we're so damned productive, why do we have these deficits in the
> first place?

trade deficit: because high US real interest rates (compared to the
rest of the world) and the "safe haven" effect  pulled up the real
exchange-weighted dollar exchange rates during the 1990s and 2000s.

budget deficit: Bushwa irresponsibility plus slower income growth.
-- 
Jim Devine
"Analysis is nothing else but breaking up a complex operation into
scraps, so that they may be easily handled and thoroughly
investigated. Afterwards the scraps have to be put together again, and
considered in relation to many other complex notions, and the
intricately interwoven facts of life." -- Alfred Marshall

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