Economy & Policy

The U.S.: export juggernaut (if you don’t count oil and China)

By Justin Fox | November 13, 2009 | +

Here’s the kind of interesting stuff you can learn reading this morning’s monthly foreign trade report from the Census Bureau:

Overall U.S. trade deficit for September: $36.5 billion

Trade deficit in petroleum products: $20.5 billion

Trade deficit with China: $22.1 billion

Overall U.S. trade surplus if you exclude petroleum and China: $6.1 billion

And so, in the spirit of EBITDA, Ajusted OIBDA and the like, I hereby propose a new metric: Trade balance before oil and China, or TBBOC (pronounced “Tupac”). Doesn’t it make you feel better already?

 

Related Topics: oil, Economy & Policy

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  • http://www.124monkeys.com Sean DeCoursey forgot his password

    Not sure this data is really useful. Seems kind of like saying your checkbook has a positive balance if you don’t count the withdrawals.

  • http://twitter.com/foxjust Justin Fox

    Right, which is pretty much what I think of Ebitda and Oibda. I guess it might be useful for detecting a trend, but the Census Bureau doesn’t make it easy to compile historical series on this stuff.

  • harryfox

    Our trade deficit with China is largely in China’s control, as long as they keep the renminbi from appreciating against the dollar.

    But our trade deficit in petroleum is largely within our control — we could shrink it dramatically by imposing a gas tax that reflected the full costs of petroleum usage including the huge military costs incurred in protecting access to overseas sources, and by ending subsidies for petroleum consumption.

  • klhoughton

    How much of that money to China goes back to U.S. corporations, and therefore gets reported as part of GNP?

    IOW, if not for the funds to Chinese companies with American, would there still be a 9.5% gain in “productivity” and “the recession is over” talk?

  • waltwriston

    Trade imbalances exist for global banks to make money off the discrepancies/currencies.

    Like the Euro. Why Does the EU have the Euro and yet have nationalized currencies that comprise a basket of them?

    When one gets a grip on how this works you’re a professional FX trader esp. the global banks the world over! Most think its just pennies but when the bet is in the 100’s of million every day those pennies add up!

    In two day more money nationally passes through FX than all global trade in currency combined!

  • waltwriston

    notionally to replace nationally

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