A Malaise Speech for the Current Time

[Mikebert]

(04-05-2017, 08:41 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: But I have caught onto something:

Trade Deficit down, American Workers winning

Maybe. Here is US-china trade deficit for the first quarter of each year from 2001 to 2019. 2019 is down from 2018, but 2018 was an unusually high spike, reflecting massive Chinese buying before the first tariffs went into effect. Averaging the last two values gives 1.65% of GDP, same as the two years before. We'll need more time to see any effects it would seem. 

Note I support a Chinese trade war so I want Trump to succeed here, but I fear he has already lost

Year              Def              % of GDP
2007              57.1              1.58
2008              55.2              1.50
2009              50.4              1.40
2010              51.7              1.38
2011              60.3              1.55
2012              66.0              1.63
2013              69.2              1.65
2014              69.6              1.59
2015              83.2              1.83
2016              77.9              1.67
2017              78.9              1.62
2018              91.1              1.78
2019              80.0              1.52