Treasurer Wayne Swan, voted "the world's best finance minister" by Euromoney magazine last year, has just handed down his fifth budget, in which he scraped together an (albeit nominal) surplus of $1.5bn£950m0m).
He did turn a $3.6 billion deficit into a $150 million surplus, albeit with the help of a tax collection surge.
As a result, a trade surplus, albeit much smaller, is still likely next year.
Current account in surplus.
Many metals are in surplus.
The role of net exports in the economy is often overstated since, as well as all those goods sold overseas, China imports a lot of raw materials and a lot of semi-finished goods for final assembly – though exports have slumped in recent months, imports have fallen even more, producing yet more trade surpluses, albeit at a lower absolute level.
But with new, albeit tentative, analyses showing that the non-Social Security portion of the surplus could grow more rapidly than anticipated, Republicans are optimistic that they can pay for a big tax cut and help pay for needed spending increases without being accused of endangering the future of the retirement system.
Its well-distributed income, low unemployment, current-account surplus and relatively low government debt make it a role model, albeit an unlikely one.
In contrast, our complementary measures of motivation – price elasticity, expenditure and consumer surplus – did not differentiate between the resources, and ranked them in different orders (albeit not significantly).
