For sure, traffic around the monument, or drug-dealing and loitering around the 49th Ward's Howard Street L stop, are a daily presence more tangible than, say, stories about colossal deficits.
That said, the figure may not get that high, because $50 oil ought to dampen American consumer demand and hence import growth.Be happy, it's springIt is possible to be sanguine about America's ever more colossal deficits, just as it is about oil.
The Stakhanovite US has a colossal trade deficit and is up to its eyes in debt – while Germany, an exemplar of long holidays (and where until recently all shops had to close at lunchtime on Saturdays in the interests of the quiet life), has sky-high productivity, massive trade surpluses, and a standard of living akin to that of the US.
Saudi Arabia has been drawing down its vast foreign currency reserves while running up colossal budget deficits.
In particular, the Mediterranean quartet of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece has suffered a huge loss of competitiveness in a relatively short time (see chart 4 .This loss is reflected in colossal current-account deficits (eg, 8.5% of GDP for Spain, which has been growing fast) or pitifully slow growth (only 1.3% a year for Italy since the euro began).
That is partly because the euro-area slowdown has only just started; partly because domestic demand has been rising; and partly because intra-east European trade has started to make up for softer exports westwards.The big exceptions are the Baltic countries of Estonia and Latvia, home to colossal current-account deficits and breakneck growth in recent years.
A cheaper pound would have been necessary at some point if the UK was ever to start closing its colossal balance of payments deficit.
Hence the UK's colossal balance of payments deficit is showing no signs of closing … The UK is storing up big problems for the future".
He wants tax avoiders to be named and shamed, adding: "Where the country's indebtedness is so colossal and the budget deficit is so huge, there is a moral obligation on people to pay their fair and reasonable dues".
