Comments on: The front page

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:36:22 +0000

That’s a pretty good set. The blogroll at my personal blog has a few more.

By: felixrayman

felixrayman — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 03:47:10 +0000

it’s still true that anyone wanting coverage of economic issues in the US would do far better to read blogs

Which ones should I read? I read DeLong, Brad Setser, Angry Bear, Marginal Revolution, couple others…what other ones would you recommend?

P.S. Get a preview button!

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:13:45 +0000

Businessweek often has worthwhile economics coverage.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 20:36:48 +0000

“balance of payments” doesn’t refer to anything specific, it can be the balance on current account, on trade in goods and services or even on capital account (the opposite of current and therefore a big surplus for the US). It’s sloppy usage which is best avoided.

In the 1960s, it most commonly referred to the balance on merchandise trade, but the US ran surpluses on goods and services trade and on the current account also.

At a minimum, US goods and firms have lost the positive associations they had in the 1990s. If they are removing source info from labels, things are definitely worse than that.

There’s an interesting cyclical pattern here. US products got a positive premium from WWII until Vietnam, then a discount in the late 60s and 70s, and a premium in the 90s. I might try a proper post on this sometime

By: European

European — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:09:12 +0000

I would be very interested to see some estimates on the extent to which an informal international boycott of US merchandise is contributing, if only marginally(?), to the trade deficit.

From the snail’s perspective of a European consumer, I find it telling that US products are now increasingly sold in Viennese supermarkets without giving the country of origin.

Today, for instance, I was reading the small print on a 200g package of almonds, which in former times used to state “Produced in USA”, but interestingly enough, only the Czech and Hungarian descriptions still contained this information, while it had disappeared in German, French, Italian, etc.

By: mw

mw — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:00:36 +0000

One hurdle though is that it’s impossible to write a good trade deficit analysis without at least talking about the budget deficit, but that’s a topic where any sensible analysis quickly gets one labeled “shrill” by the attack dogs on the right.

The trade deficit remained large even when the U.S. was running a budget surplus in the 90’s…

By: raj

raj — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:32:21 +0000

In the 1960s in the US news reports were replete with the fact that the US had a huge balance of payments surplus. It is fairly clear that the “balance of payments” is a broader metric than the “balance of trade,” but I’m not sure what difference there is—if any—between balance of payments and “current account”

By: Movie Guy

Movie Guy — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 06:11:21 +0000

I was told recently that the bird flu will stimulate interest in the trade deficit. Perhaps so. Little else has created much media interest.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 04:07:58 +0000

What was the Argentine press’s treatment of these things?

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 03:06:06 +0000

Yes the US media have always had a “stuff happens” attitude to the balance of payments, one of the luxuries of being the reserve currency. Of course that may be changing. One hurdle though is that it’s impossible to write a good trade deficit analysis without at least talking about the budget deficit, but that’s a topic where any sensible analysis quickly gets one labeled “shrill” by the attack dogs on the right.