Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 23rd of September 2017 to The Sounding Line.
Enjoy The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.
Today’s ‘Map of the Day’ is a fantastic interactive map showing the trade of goods by type between every country in the world. The map can’t be embed the into this page, so definitely here, or on the image below, to explore the interactive map. Per the map’s creator:
“According the UN’s Comtrade database, the global market for imported goods totaled $15.6 trillion in 2015. This map shows where those goods came from and where they went, each dot representing $1 billion in value. Select a country to see the flow of goods in and out of that country.”
The map illustrates just how central the US, China, and Germany are to global trade. As the map’s creator notes, nearly half of all of global trade is either imported or exported through one of these three countries.
P.S. We have added email distribution for The Sounding Line. If you would like to be updated via email when we post a new article, please click here. It’s free and we won’t send any promotional materials.
Would you like to be notified when we publish a new article on The Sounding Line? Click here to subscribe for free.
I few comments: 1. If the Fed shrinks its balance sheet, the money will have to come out of excess reserves. Therefore they are going to shrink. 2. Paradoxically our trade deficit can finance the government. It looks like the Fed is done raising on the short end. I don’t think long bond rates will go up, however. They might. Instead you will see a shrinkage of excess reserves. The article also doesn’t mention that the Fed is basically paying the Fed Funds Rate on excess reserves. This is why we don’t have price inflation. The end game is when… Read more »
You make a number of interesting points. I agree with you that when the excess bank reserves are depleted, it will be very difficult to finance the current rates of credit expansion without drawing funds from other financial assets.
I also agree that, paradoxically, the US trade deficit has financed the government’s deficits. You might find this article interesting where I talk a bit about that:
https://thesoundingline.com/dissecting-us-trade-part-i-deficits-and-debt/
Thanks for the interest
International trade is intrinsically ‘unsustainable’. Countries and communities should be self sustaining rather than relying on others. Unfortunately there is zero mainstream realisation or discussion of sustainability which cannot sit side by side with current concepts of economics. If we are growing we are consuming. If we consume, pollute or spoil more than can be replaced, not withstanding some huge tech revolution, we die. Its as basic as that.
Or not
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7221-free-trade-may-have-finished-off-neanderthals/
just because someone can trade with their nearest neighbour by walking or boating to them doesn’t disprove my argument.
I agree that countries should be a self-sufficient as possible but homo sapiens have been conducting very long distance trade for thousands of years. It’s one of the keys to the success of the human species. If there is a shortage of food, or anything for that matter, in one region, a surplus can be imported from another.