Though America's trade deficit has been growing by about $100 billion annually - hitting $726 billion last year - that doesn't necessarily mean a sober day of reckoning is drawing near.

"It's clear that the US trade deficit cannot go on galloping ahead $100 billion a year indefinitely," says Daniel Griswold, a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. But "it's more likely the adjustments will be incremental rather than jarring."

Whoa! I don't see $726,000,000,000 looking much like $100,000,000,000. If it were still looking that way, I might agree changes would be incremental. It's not. The only similarity is that the trade defecit hasn't hit 13 digits yet. This isn't going to be incremental, at some point that bill is going to come due and we're not going to be able to pay it.

By the way, that's DEFICIT. One year. What's the total DEBT?

About 400 years ago, Polonius said "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." While the principle is reasonable, practicality says it is permissible. We aren't being borrower and lender, we just keep borrowing, and borrowing, and borrowing. At some point, we need to give back. Well we don't have that, and that means it either gets fixed real fast, or the 1930's might look like an age of prosperity.

Giant trade gap: no end in sight - Yahoo! News