Sunday, October 21, 2007

What Did We Import/Export in August?

Exhibit 8

Here's the list of fastest growing imports for August (over July, ranked by dollar amount of increase).

  1. TV's, VCR's, etc: $3,291 million, up $314 million (11% increase)
  2. Crude Oil: $19,326 million, up $306 million (2% increase)
  3. Apparel, household goods - cotton: $4,422 million, up $272 million (7% increase)
  4. Computers: $3,346 million, up $268 million (9% increase)
  5. Liquefied petroleum gases: $1,344 million, up $264 million (24% increase)
Big shocker there, huh?

Exhibit 7

Here's the list of fastest growing exports for August (over July, ranked by dollar amount of increase).

  1. Nonmonetary gold: $1,439 million, up $442 million (44% increase)
  2. Wheat: $898 million, up $380 million (73% increase)
  3. Cotton, raw: $689 million, $379 million (122% increase)
  4. Nonferrous metals, other: $756 million, up $269 million (55% increase)
  5. Other household goods: $1,370, up $160 million (13% increase)
Gold and food tops the list. That's just fantastic. No wonder our trade deficit is improving. Foreigners finally found something of ours that they want (and they are apparently bidding it up). I can feel the prosperity slipping away, can't you?

Note to self: remain stagflationary.

Source Data:
News Release: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 21, 2007 at 4:22 PM

    So basically we're heading towards being a resource-exporting economy (other than oil).

    Joy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stagflationary MarkOctober 21, 2007 at 4:35 PM

    F. Frederson,

    I'm not entirely pessimistic. I think there is hope that there will be a bull market in food prices soon.

    (Sarcasm is best served constantly.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousOctober 21, 2007 at 10:19 PM

    Hey, wait a minute, I thought our drive down the information superhighway was supposed to make us big bucks by exporting IDEAS. Come to think of it, I still haven't gotten that bridge they sold me either. . .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stagflationary MarkOctober 21, 2007 at 10:43 PM

    Did you use a bridge loan? *cringing*

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousOctober 22, 2007 at 7:34 PM

    Well I went to my homebrew supply shop today and was told there are big price hikes coming down the pike. Apparently this year's hop crops were so bad that everything is spoken for, and my local shop was very lucky to get anything. Malt and grain are going up, too.

    But all that is food-like, so it does not count as actual inflation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Stagflationary MarkOctober 22, 2007 at 8:33 PM

    But all that is food-like, so it does not count as actual inflation.

    It counts as far as inflation adjustments go (TIPS and I-Bonds, for example), but it is definitely in the "inflation we will allow assuming it is only volatile" bucket when it comes to doing anything about it. We'll just have to wait and see how that turns out. (My thinking is it won't turn out all that well.)

    ReplyDelete