January 2, 2006

Balance

It was January, dark, cold and raining, quite a few years back. My economics professor walked into the classroom wearing a knee-length raincoat and rubber boots, carrying an umbrella in one hand, briefcase in the other. He sported a closely hewn crewcut that crowned a stocky european frame. Filled with energetic zeal for a new assignment, he placed the dripping umbrella on the desk.

The professor introduced himself to the class as he wiped the moisture from his glasses and took a handful of papers from the briefcase. Walking to the podium in his raincoat and boots, he said something like this:

"Good morning; I don't agree with much in your assigned textbook, so, I've rewritten most of it. We'll spend one class each week copying my notes from the blackboard, and the other class will be discussion."

With that, he turned and started transferring his notes to the board along two sides of the classroom. The class dutifully wrote for an hour and a half. Somewhere in the middle of this scriptathon, he kicked off his boots and finished in his stocking feet.

The students didn't say much in the second class meeting either. We wrote for another 45 minutes, then spent the rest trying to understand just what the hell he was talking about. Mostly, I remember their faces as we glanced at representative icons in the room with a look of "God, help us".

All true; also true is, this was my first and last Econ class.

Hence, the kind reader will understand certain limitations as I casually mention China's 9.8% economic growth rate for 2005. Compared to 4.1% for the U.S. Granted, ours is a controlled growth, theirs threatens to get out of hand. Nevertheless, it portends a dismal fate as our dollars continue to flow into China, fueling their infrastructure.

The Census.gov site shows a $6 million trade deficit in 1985, growing to an annual deficit in excess of $170 billion today.

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