Broken Trade—The Wages of Bad Money

Another month. Another giant trade deficit.

In fact, the $86 billion ($1 trillion annualized) rate of deficit in goods for September marked the 575th consecutive month of red ink on the merchandise trade account. And also, a flow of red ink that has gotten progressively largely with each turn of the business cycle.

US Trade Deficit In Goods, 1992 to 2023

Needless to say, this isn’t normal, sound or economically sustainable. It’s actually a sign of thundering malfunction in our economic system, owing primarily to the toxic impact of bad money from the central bank.

We have now had decades of fiscal profligacy and egregious money-pumping by the Federal Reserve. These misbegotten policies have temporarily juiced current economic results, but so doing they have also deeply impaired and capriciously bifurcated the national economy and polity.