Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Service-based or not (and if anything, we're agriculture- and mining-based):

You're in deep trouble if you continue to consume and invest more goods than you can afford. It doesn't matter whether your service sector has a gazillion volume. If it cannot export enough value to make up for the deficit in goods trade, you're not in a sustainable mode.

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/inte...ime_series.xls
Hey Fuchs,

Appreciate your sharing your view of things from Deutschland. It helps with getting a 360 view of things, which I think is very important.

You raise some interesting points regarding the economic structure of nations/societies. What are appropriate export/import ratios, debt ratios, manufacturing and service ratios as to a total economy, among other ratios? For specific business sectors business ratios are captured and used to guide decision making, but I am not aware of any such guidelines for nations? Quality of sources and references is always an issue, to include the CIA Worldfactbook Multiple different sources seems to be the way to go.

Per The 2011 Economist Pocket World in Figures the US has the largest world economy with a 14.093 trillion USD GDP, and the worlds largest industrial output at 3.073 trillion. The last is not defined and can be contrasted with a manufacturing output of 1.8311 trillion USD which puts us in second place behind China which cranks out 1.850 trillion USD and is the worlds largest (with Germany at 855 billion USD). With respect to government debt as percent of GDP Japan is #1 at 189.3%, Greece is #4 at 114.9%, America #8 at 83.9%, Germany #12 at 77.4%, Switzerland #23 at 44.4%, and China is not listed within the 29 nations examined.

One of the things about America that I see, from inside and afar, is that we are a deeply restless nation. We are chock full of immigrants that were quite upset with the status quo and strong enough so to say 'a pox on all your houses, I am outta here' and follow through. It's my opinion that this is why we, as a nation, are such a unpredictable/stochastic catalyst/change agent. Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad, but it's our core competency.

It's very possible that economically we as a nation are about to take a beating, but it will not kill us, and if it knocks us down we will get up afterwards. What upsets me is that, IMO, the hoi polloi suffers due to serial mismanagement by the political class as a whole....over the course of several administrations. I look forward to changes resulting from upcoming elections