Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Trade Deficit, Part 3



Top Five Containerized Imports (in TEUs, FY 2006)

Furniture: 578,052
Clothing and Shoes: 448,630
Computers and Office Machines: 195,864
Autos, Trucks and Motorcycles: 166,131
Toys: 163,406

Top Five Containerized Exports (in TEUs, FY 2006)

Paper Products: 172,588
Cotton: 113,334
Pet and Animal Feed: 69,231
Metal Scrap: 63,213
Resins, Plastics and Rubber: 56,650


Things to think about:
  1. Why is our advanced economy exporting raw goods?
  2. Is more education going to make us better at exporting raw goods?
  3. Why are the developing economies exporting advanced products?
  4. Are they becoming more educated?
  5. Why does the growth in imports appear to be slowing dramatically?
  6. Are we becoming tapped out?
  7. If we become tapped out, will Ben Bernanke live up to his helicopter nickname even if oil is $80 a barrel?
  8. Or will he give us tough love instead?

Source Data:
The Port of Los Angeles

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

excellent post.

how stark. the us has a trade pattern typically associated with what we used to call the third world. now we call them emerging markets. looks like soon we'll call them sir. or maybe madam.

Stagflationary Mark said...

ecoshift,

We certainly seem intent on moving towards third world status.

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. - George Bush, December, 2000