39 and counting

  Our Balance of Payments (BOP) has been negative since 1975 !  This means we have imported to the United States more goods and services (net) than we have exported to other countries around the world. 1995 goes back the the Ford Administration --  long time !

  There have been peaks and valley's in the negative results, but no positive BOP. The negative balance leaped in Reagan's 2nd term. It also showed a high negative gain in the years after NAFTA (93). It went off the chart in 2006, showing 761,716 million negative. The Wall Street influence was peaking about that time.

  The BOP is a good read on the health of the economy of a country. It would not be a far stretch to say the decline of American economic power started in the mid-seventies. Most world leaders recognize America's relative decline in matters, both economic and political.

  World leaders and bankers gathered in Washington this month and some were thinking that America is retreating from World leadership. I suppose they mean voluntarily. But, I think the shift has been more legitimate. The big lick was the consolidation of economic power within the United States. Then, more globalist thinking, followed by the industrial shift, and the outsourcing of manufacturing. You can measure economic power by manufacturing.   Our  home grown multinationals are having their stuff made in other countries. They are accompanied by our debt-ridden welfare state as the purchasers of the products.  Just that fact alone, answers a lot of America's economic dilemma and inequality.

  Some accuse the current political dysfunction for America's decline, and true enough, we have been electing the same people term after term. But, I see a decades old decline in both political and economic strength.