Trade Deficit Postponed Due To Ongoing Trade

The news, which we presume arrived via carrier pigeon too overwhelmed to complete its usual rounds, suggests that this month’s much-anticipated trade deficit has been, shall we say, rescheduled. Apparently, the relentless churn of goods and services across borders proved too vigorous, too *insistent*, for the delicate calculations required to quantify exactly how much we’re importing more than we’re exporting. One can almost picture the poor statisticians at the U.S. Department of Commerce, spreadsheets in hand, being buffeted by an invisible hurricane of containers ships and customs forms, unable to get a clear reading.

It appears the global marketplace has simply decided it's too busy being a global marketplace to bother with inconvenient assessments of its own imbalance. This remarkable administrative achievement begs the question: if we're perpetually postponing bad news because the very mechanism causing it is too active, when exactly will we be deemed quiet enough for the global economy to properly acknowledge its own vulnerabilities? Perhaps when all trade ceases, then and only then will our deficits finally feel it’s safe to emerge from hiding.