That IBD article is a bit humorous. http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=302138403720589 First the globalists/"free traders" told us that trade deficits were GOOD because (as one otherwise intelligent economist put it) "we give them nothing but 'paper' and they give us cheap goods to consume". Now they concede that 80% currency devaluation and millions more people working for a shrinking take home fraction of GDP actually IS bad, but it's "OK" because exports are increasing. Yeah, instead of being hammered by $800 billion a year we'll take it at only $650 billion a year. Maybe if we can devalue our currency to 1/1000 of previous value we can balance trade and REALLY benefit from those "surging exports". Articles like this target fools and dupes by focusing them in on a single healthy tree in a forest that is burning down. Why have we forgotten old Adam Smith? "Domestic production for domestic consumption employs twice as much labor as foreign production for domestic consumption" which is the true key to the Wealth of Nations. Hell, unless you only read the (fraudulently) truncated Samuelson textbook invisible hand quote, you know that the use of capital in domestic production IS what the "invisible hand" is leading the capitalist to do... which as Smith says "by no intention of his own" leads to "the prosperity of the nation". Bah, never mind all that, let's focus on how exports are up a tiny fraction while we all sink into oblivion. Everything is fine in Orwellian America.