] We would achieve this balance by issuing what I will call
] Import Certificates...

This was a lot of information to digest. I too, am not at all savvy with my knowledge of macroeconomics. The best I can say is that this sounds like a pretty reasonable method of constructing a tariff that is both country and product neutral. This would not have been a reasonable idea several years ago, but given electronic markets I could see lively trade of these ICs Buffet suggests creating.

Trade deficits are something to be worried about.. However, I also don't necessarily think everything we "export" is something that can be laid out in a spreadsheet.

Jeremy meme'd something recently about outsourcing where he made a suggestion that in come cases we are making the choice between wealth and security, and there is a balance. There are countries we may find desirable to have a deficit with in order to drive positive growth in their local economy, hence positive change in their society. We do export freedom and democracy, and it comes back in many forms. There is a degree to which this is a hard^Wimpossible thing to fully account for..

This also makes me think of another meme Jeremy recommended about counter-insurgency.. There is a degree to which we are spending our wealth to dry up support for ideals and groups which lead to our security problems. Our wealth is one of the few things we can toss around to confront these asymmetric threats.

Buffet: America's growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us.