US Trade Deficit

US trade deficit surges to $40.18 billion in December!

Remember when (late 1960's?) the trade deficit was $12 billion for the whole year(!), and the Fed was terribly concerned because the trade deficit was close to exceeding our gold reserve? Well, at least we don't need to be concerned now about our gold reserve....we ain't got none!

In my opinion I'd like to hear some discussions on Import Certificates as proposed by Warren Buffett. Also, in my opinion, an increasing trade deficit, other than being just plain negative global PR for the US and affecting (increasingly disaffecting?) world confidence in us, provides evidence of decreasing manufacturing production (oh, really?), but most importantly signals the increase of off-shore, extra-national, movement of our manufacturing base (and loss of good paying jobs--oh, really).

Some say that as a percentage of our GNP the trade deficit is not problematical; that this percentage of our GNP is fairly in line with earlier years. Yeah, okay, that's an understandable statistic. But you tell me, isn't an over $800 billion (big B) trade deficit a problem? Make that a BIG problem!