Grasscatcher

by Darris McNeely

Submitted March 11, 2005

It seems to have been a quiet week for big news items, and that's not bad. Where I am it is cold and snowy, it looks like you are inside one of those little glass orbs you shake up and it looks like a snow scene. Big flakes of snow are swirling around my office windows. I have a fire going in the fireplace and some steaks ready for the grill. Can't wait to get to it.

The Wall Street Journal "afternoon report" has a piece about the January trade figures for the United States. We continue to import more goods and services then we export. China and other Asian nations keep the dollar from declining further in value. The trade deficit grew to $58.3 billion dollars in january. "While we keep on moving forward, and buying everyone else's products, the rest of world is not sucking in a whole lot of our goods and services," Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, wrote in a note. When the U.S. imports more than it exports, it is basically borrowing money from overseas to fuel its profligate lifestyle.

Warren Buffet had some very strong words about where this will lead and we reported on it earlier this week. You will hear some economists say we have nothing to worry about, that our economy is strong enough in others areas to weather this deficit situation. Of course that is assuming all things continue as they have in the past. But things could change. maybe it won't always be the same. There are a lot of countries who envy America's strength and wish to see us taken down a notch. When foreign creditors have finally had enough could be disastrous. Wet could very well see higher interest rates, lower stock prices and weaker economic growth.

I am not an economist but I know that when I spend more than I take in I am headed for bankruptcy and insolvency. A nation can put off the day of reckoning in several ways but eventually the chickens will come home to roost, as my dear mother used to say.

WNP European contributor Paul Kieffer has a comment about the high unemployment problem in Germany. Paul has unique access to the European scene and offers insight from more than thirty years of international experience.