Commenting on this post, commentor Warren Platts writes (emphasis added):
You economists can debate amongst yourselves about how trade deficits don’t matter. But your debates are what don’t matter now. Now we need to just get this done, come hell or high water. Your job now, as an experienced economist, is to tell us how to get this done.
His comment leads to an interesting question: what is the role of the expert? Is the role just to tell the non-expert how to get whatever the non-expert wants done? I argue that the answer is “no.” The expert should advise, not merely comply. The decision-making process should be collaborative, not dictatorial. The non-expert may have some goals in mind, but the expert should be active in helping the non-expert decide: 1) what goals are actually achievable (as opposed to merely possible), 2) what goals are desirable, and (assuming agreement upon 1 and 2), and 3) how to achieve said goals. In other words, in order to avoid expert failure (that is, the advice of the expert not achieving the desired results), both the expert and the non-expert should be active in the decision-making process.
In his 2018 book Expert Failure, Roger Koppl sets out a taxonomy of expert failure (see Table 10.1, page 190). One of the conditions he discusses, where the expert decides for the expert and there is only one expert, can lead to the “Rule of Experts.” Under the Rule of Experts, we are most likely to get expert failure. There are few checks in the process to ensure the opinion being sold is actually desirable and useful. Most notably, the non-expert cannot push back; the expert makes the decisions for the non-expert. Contestation is a vital check in the information-generation process to ensure the opinion generated is actually useful.
But, since any transaction is reciprocal, we can consider an inverse scenario where there is a monopsony for expert opinion. That is, there is only one buyer. Just like the non-expert’s ability to push back against the advice of the expert is essential to reduce the probability of failure, so is the expert’s ability to push back on the non-expert. There must be dialogue between the two parties: a fair, free, and reciprocal discussion. A monologue, where one party simply dictates the terms, is a recipe for disaster. A few months ago, I wrote about how such monopsony power can lead to experts becoming mere mouthpieces. Indeed, we have seen the disasterous consequences of this monopsony over the past few weeks as the Trump Administration wiped out about $6 trillion in American wealth in just a few short days thanks to extraordinarily bad advice on trade.
I have been lucky in my relatively-short career to be an advisor to private companies, governments, and lawyers. In each of these, before any contract is signed, I sit down with the prospective client to discuss needs and expectations. I lay out what they are buying from me: advice and opinion. If an idea or policy is bad, I will say so. If a goal is bad, I will say so. If they push, I will walk away. Most clients understand this point. If they already had a goal or policy in mind, they wouldn’t need an expert. They are looking for advice. But, I have had a few clients who insist they want me to come up with a model or line of reason to support their views. I have walked away from those deals.
So, I reject the argument that it is the job of the expert to do whatever the non-expert wishes, “come Hell or high water.” Rather, we should avoid Hell and high water, not cause them. If the non-expert is intent on destroying themselves, the expert should have no part of that. Or, as is the case of Trump’s trade war, the action will cause widespread harm to millions of people, the expert has a solemn duty to stop it, rather than give legitimacy to the action.
PS: There is no serious debate among economists whether trade deficits matter. They don’t. Economists are quite universally agreed upon that point. There are always some dissenters, but that doesn’t mean there is a debate. Just like there is no debate among astronomers that the world is actually a sphere. Sure, you’ll get the occasional one who will insist the world is flat, but that doesn’t mean there is a debate in any meaningful sense.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Apr 18 2025 at 5:17pm
Consider the debate in the context of legal experts:
“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, [but] what humanity, reason and justice tell me I ought to do.” Edmund Burke
“I don’t want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do; I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.” J.P. Morgan
Both Burke and Morgan want to exercise discretion, and merely want a lawyer to enable them to exercise that discretion in a manner that benefits from the lawyer’s expertise. Burke states that he will choose based on high-minded morals—but Burke picks the morals he finds relevant, and Burke then choose how to apply them. In this, he appears no different than Morgan, who summarizes the discretion he wants to wield as simply “what I want to do.”
But what discretion should the expert wield?
Can the mere fact of having expertise/knowledge impose an obligation? For example, should you feel an obligation to testify if you witnessed a murder? If you get subpoenaed? If a teacher learns that a child has been the victim of abuse, must the teacher report this to authorities? If a person will die without medical attention, must a physician provide it? What if the physician believes the patient deserves her fate because she tried to have an abortion—or because she refused to accept Jesus as her savior?
Could an expert conclude that, at least where a person seeks solely to affect herself, his role is to simply offer informed forecasts and insights without judging the person’s motives or goals? Or must the expert impose his own values before extending the benefits of his expertise? If an air traffic controller thinks that the weather is too dangerous to fly, does the controller have a duty to exercise her prerogative to prevent all take-offs, or is it sufficient that the controller inform the pilot of her opinion and let the pilot decide?
What if an expert does things that, according to prevailing norms, signals a commitment to act for another’s benefit? May a lifeguard simply decline to aid a swimmer? May an emergency room doctor decline to aid a patient? May a parent simply abandon a child?
I oppose slavery, so I believe experts should be able to decide how to deploy their own labor—including the use of the expertise that resides within their own minds. The expert should have the option to withhold opinion/advice that the expert thinks will lead to bad ends. But this view leads to quandaries:
What about the intellectual property committed to other media? The 4th Amendment suggests limits to government access to that media, but the limits are not absolute prohibitions. Are there circumstances when the state may commandeer John Galt’s factories, built using Galt’s intellectual property, for purposes John Galt opposes? Perhaps.
What if an expert/witness/influencer has cause to suspect that, in the absence of speaking, people will pursue even worse ends? When the SS says that they’ll torture you until you disclose where the Jews are hiding, are you justified in giving a false statement? (See Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Wall (1939).) If a simple-minded mob plans to burn down a village, and you have sufficient influence to redirect them to burning down one person’s house instead, should you?
These are the things I ponder when I’m procrastinating on more important things….
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 10:35am
And those ponderings are why I advocate for dialouge above.
steve
Apr 18 2025 at 9:09pm
I am glad you emphasized that there are limits on what you can recommend based upon your expertise and some times you have to walk away. Too many people dont value their integrity. While most patients and family were reasonable and easy to work with, especially if you made some minimal effort to talk in a way they would understand, sometimes they were just nuts and you had to tell them they were wrong. My practice was oriented towards acute and critical care, so I largely couldn’t walk away but needed to find some way to set limits and occasionally we had to bring in the legal team when families instead upon treatments that are actually harmful.
Steve
Andy Weintraub
Apr 18 2025 at 9:09pm
I, too, am an “expert”. At least, that’s what the courts call me – an expert witness. Most of the time I have to estimate the loss of future income for someone whose been injured and can no longer work. And, yes, it’s often the case that the attorney – usually for the plaintiff – wants me to lower the discount rate used to calculate the present value of future lost income.
In response I simply say, as an expert, I can’t do that.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Apr 18 2025 at 9:17pm
I see a role for the expert pushing back at the client to make sure he understands the client’s utility function.
C: I want tariffs to promote more manufacturing.
X: Gross output? value added? employment? Why?
X: Any particulate subsectors? Why those?
X: How much loss in real income is it worth to achieve the objective?
X: Why tariffs if subsidies have a lower loss of real income?
But once the Client’s utility function is know the exert should estimate the set of tariffs (possibly all zero) that maximize it.
How does tht framwork jibe with yours?
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 10:33am
I don’t disagree per se. I’m not a Max U guy, so it wouldn’t be the framework I’d use, but it’s not unreasonable.
If we are to use a Max U framework, I’d add, especially for political consulting, that the goal is not to maximize the client’s utility function, but the social utility function. That the two differ is a key insight of public choice. So, we already see how public choice leads to better policymaking.
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 2:29am
H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, recently wrote a book on his experiences at the White House. I haven’t read the book yet, but I watch his podcasts. He said there were three kinds of advisors there:
(1) Guys like McMaster himself. As he says, he wasn’t the elected President. Trump was. So McMaster viewed his job as being there to provide options for the Executive to achieve his goals because Trump was the elected President.
(2) The Iagos like Steve Bannon that attempted to manipulate Trump through flattery and preying on his insecurities in order to get their goals enacted.
(3) Then there were those like Gary Cohn who actively tried to sabotage Trump. This is treasonous behavior imho. If you’re working for the President and you don’t like what he’s doing, then your solemn duty is to resign, and not try to stop what what the elected President is doing.
So I guess you’re in group (3), Jon. Anyways, your claim trade deficits don’t matter is pure gaslighting. I am doing you a favor by telling you that the economics profession has about as much credibility among the public these days as the American virologists stumbling over each other denying the covid virus was a lab creation when it turned out that they designed the virus, or climate scientists who want us to spend trillions in order to send us into an overdue ice age when as far as I can see, all that’s happening is fertilizing the air and extending growing seasons.
Trade deficits matter for a number of reasons: (1) the trade deficit represents an export of domestic demand and an import of foreign unemployment; (2) if free trade worked, our GDP growth rates after entering all these free trade agreements should have gone up — instead they went down; (3) you all told us that if only we allowed the Marxist-Leninist Empire to run massive trade surpluses with us, they would magically turn into a democratic, free society — instead we sold them rope they’re going to hang us with; (4) we need to decouple essential supply chains from the Marxist-Leninist Empire that already has killed 2 million Americans between covid and fentanyl and are now preparing to fight WWIII and kill the rest of us, probably in a civilization-ending nuclear holocaust; (5) the trade deficit has absolutely devastated numerous commuter zones, especially in the midwest, leading to even more carnage in the form of deaths of despair, declining marriage rates, declining birth rates, and lowering the national life expectancy; (6) we need to bring back more manufacturing just for strategic reasons — it’s like we’ve forgot how to do it; we can’t even supply artillery rounds to Ukraine at a rate that matches what the Russians and North Koreans can; (7) the global savings glut — that is the obverse of the U.S. trade deficit — caused the 2008 financial crisis; (8) we are heading into a debt crisis at full speed because of the trade deficit — NIIP is now at negative 90% GDP; (9) the trade deficit lowers labor productivity by forcing formerly productive manufacturing workers into low-productivity service sector jobs if they don’t just go on the dole; (10) the vaunted capital account surplus that Dr. Boudreaux loves so much is the thing that doesn’t matter — there is no shortage of capital in this country: if you got a great idea, the venture capitalists will find you — if we got bridges & roads that need to be fixed, then why hasn’t all this foreign capital inflow fixed them? I could go on.
This stuff is important and President Trump was elected to fix this stuff. If you can’t provide any options for the President to end the trade deficit, then one is forced to conclude you simply don’t know how; that in fact maybe you are not an expert. Luckily, at least we still got Peter Navarro…
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 9:43am
Two things:
First, I find your comments deeply ironic given today is the 250 anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord
Second, you have claimed to be a geologist. Let’s say the President came to you and said “I was elected on the platform that volcanoes spew communism and you must help me plug them by dropping a nuke in each volcano.” Are you truly claiming that responding to him “I’m sorry Mr President, but that’s not correct and that method would cause more harm than good” would be treasonous?
steve
Apr 19 2025 at 10:49am
Jon doesnt work for Trump so how could he be treasonous? Does this mean everyone who opposes Trump’s ideas is treasonous? Jon, and other economists are not actively trying to sabotage Trump but offering their expectations of the result of Trump’s actions. In this case it’s almost unanimous in the profession that tariffs are bad. In medicine we have the occasional doctor who promotes pure quackery. Stuff like miracle pills, supplements that will cure dementia, etc. However, the rest of the profession understands it’s fake and wrong. Same goes for someone like Navarro.
Btw, available evidence strongly supports the covid virus not being designed.
Steve
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 3:09pm
Dr. Steve, I said Gary Cohn’s behavior was treasonous. Cripes, he was stealing papers off Trump’s desk! Jon flat out admitted that if he were somehow in Gary Cohn’s job as chief economic advisor, he would do the same thing. However, since Jon is not at the White House, he is in no position to commit treason, we have free speech in this country, therefore, I agree that Jon has not committed treason.
And I wince whenever I hear the “term of art”: “scientific consensus.” Tariffs are not good or bad in themselves. They are a means to an end. The ends can be raising revenue, protecting Home industries, or punishing Communist empires for unfair trade practices, or even all three at once.
What is bad is the trade deficit. Yes, I know trade deficits can be good for some developing countries that could use the foreign investment. However, the U.S. trade deficit is bad for all the reasons I listed above. As a physician, Steve, I would expect you of all people to be concerned about the decline in life expectancy in the USA. Well, the root cause of the decline in life expectancy is the trade deficit that’s ruined the economic lives of a large swath of the American population even as the laptop class enjoyed a nice consumer surplus and some financiers made out like the bandits that they are. Cf. Case & Deaton’s Deaths of Despair. Therefore, as a physician, you should be all for closing the trade deficit.
Oh it most certainly was designed and it was designed by the Americans. Shockingly, covid is one of those “Designed in USA; Made in China” products. We got the receipts: that DEFUSE grant proposal that DARPA rejected proposed adding a furin cleavage site to an engineered virus derived from bat corona viruses. There even was a purchase order for restriction enzymes that match the exact restriction enzyme sites, all six of them that are all nicely evenly spaced around the virus genome. But I reckon if I did something that resulted in the death of 20 million people, I’d have a hard time handling the truth as well. And before anyone says this is off topic, it’s really not because it was the opening up of China with free trade proposals that provided the conditions that promoted the close collaboration between Ecohealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And of course the Chinese will screw up anything. They were fooling around with these viruses in a BSL 2 lab that literally is the same biosafety level of your local dental office.
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 3:49pm
What in reality are you talking about?
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 7:17pm
The virus you mean? OK I will attempt to lay out the entire argument in layman’s terms. Let’s go: There are these special enzymes (a big protein molecule) called restriction enzymes that virologists use to cut viral genomes into pieces at specific places called restriction endonuclease recognition sites. The reason they do this is because it’s easier to work on smaller pieces than the whole genome, like if you wanted to insert a gene called FURIN that codes for the so-called spike protein. The covid virus looks like a ball with tree-like “spikes” sprouting up all over it. The spikes facilitate cell entry thus making the virus highly infectious. The thing is, of the wild viruses we know about that are that are most similar to SARS-Cov-2, they do not have these spike proteins.
Anyways, you can think of a viral genome as if it were a big pearl necklace with several clasps. The clasps are the restriction recognition sites. Now, all wild virus genomes have the clasps. The problem is they are randomly distributed. So if you take the necklace apart, some strands will be too long and others will be too short. Virologists want medium length strands. So they move around the clasps, maybe remove a couple or add 1 or 2, until they got a necklace with half a dozen more or less evenly spaced clasps so they can have 6 medium-sized strands that are easy to work on. Once you’re done working on the strands, you can then reattach the clasps to make the new, full viral genome. This technique has been around for at least 20 years.
The covid virus has this pattern. Well, you say, that could be just a coincidence. So Buttell et al. (2022) did a Monte Carlo simulation (they call it in silico, but it’s basically a Monte Carlo simulation) that randomly created virtual genomes and found that only around 1% or less of the randomly created genomes had six evenly spaced restriction recognition sites (the clasps) that resembled the SARS-Cov-2 virus genome.
If you got that level of significance in an economics study, you’d be happy with it. But I guess one could say that a 1% chance still leaves room for reasonable doubt. However, Buttell et al.’s paper functioned as a bold prediction. And sure enough, much later after their paper was published, that DARPA grant proposal surfaced. And it contains a virtual blueprint for SARS-Cov-2: (1) take a wild bat coronavirus and move the restriction recognition sites around (the clasps) to make 6 evenly spaced strands; (2) then insert the FURIN gene; (3) then reassemble the strands and thus create a new virus that has “gain of function” (that is a euphemism for making the virus much more deadly); (4) there was even a purchase order for the exact restriction enzymes that you would need to cut the viral genome at the restriction recognition sites identified by Buttell et al.
That was the smoking gun. There is no longer room for reasonable doubt. And it turns out Fauci himself knew all about this stuff all along. It is lucky for him he got pardoned — otherwise he would be in big trouble. At least it will be interesting when he gets dragged in front of Congress. I see that today the White House has fully embraced the lab origin.
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 12:41pm
My expertise is in oil field consulting, geosteering to be specific. I’d be sent a well plan and a designated target zone. My job was make steering recommendations to keep the hole in the target zone as much as possible. However, I would provide them with options. I might suggest, “Hey, as we’re drilling down, if we move to the left a little bit, we can add 10% to payzone hole length.” Or if we’re drilling a wildcat well in a brand new area, I might say, “Guys, I’m not sure I trust this seismic graph. Since this is the first time in this area and we don’t know much about the structural geology, maybe we should go for a less aggressive target zone this time.” But at the end of the day, it’s my job to do what I’m told. Why? Because I don’t own the oil company. I’m just a subcontractor paid to provide advice; it’s not my job to tell the honchos in Pittsburgh what to do.
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 1:35pm
Over the years, you’ve claimed to be a lunar geologist, a marine biologist, and now an oil field geologist. You’ve worn many hats.
Regardless, you didn’t answer my question. If, say, the head honchos in Pittsburg say “we’re going to drill for either and detonate a nuke undergroud to get at said either, and it is your job to make that happen,” to dissent would be treason?
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 4:02pm
Yes of course. I got a degree in Geophysical Sciences at Chicago and an MS in Fishery & Wildlife Biology at Colorado State. I also did an ABT master’s in philosophy at the same place where I studied environmental ethics and philosophy of science. I’ve watched birds and caught fish for the USFWS. It was a fun job, but the head of Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Reserve sat me down and across from his desk flat out told me that if I want to make a career out of the USFWS, it was going to be tough because I’m a white male. That’s one reason I like the oil patch: there’s no DEI BS. It’s a pure meritocracy. The lunar geology is more of a hobby; there’s certainly no money in it, but I developed the theory of electrostatic placer deposits, probably the first new kind of placer deposits described in hundreds of years. You can read it for yourself here. My current project is investigating the potential astrobiology of the Moon because I believe there’s evidence for sublunarian aquifers in a few places.
It’s funny that you ask that, Jon, because there were proposals to do exactly that back in the 1970s: to use nukes for fracking. In fact, they actually tried it once or twice in Colorado. I knew a guy who said he drilled a well near the site. He said it was all screwed up, but I can’t remember exactly why he said that. But if I had been in on that project, hell yeah I would’ve done it. It would’ve been fun. Of course, the idea was never pursued for both practical reasons and the fact that public is scared of nukes. My own mother was heavily involved in a local opposition group that successfully stopped a similar project that was proposed practically next door to where I grew up.
As for volcanoes, my advice is that if you’re worried about damage from volcanos, don’t build your house on the side of a live volcano. However, if the Yellowstone caldera were to blow up (again), now that would be a real disaster that would destroy at least half the United States. So I’m kind of intrigued by your idea, Jon. Maybe it would be a good idea to drill a hole underneath Yellowstone Lake and set off a 20-megaton hydrogen bomb in order to relieve the pressure now so it doesn’t blow catastrophically in the future. But it’s a national park, there is an endangered species of cutthroat trout in the lake, and we probably got thousands of years before it’s a crisis. Although, the dome is currently rising at an unprecedented rate….
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 5:08pm
A very revealing answer.
Ike Coffman
Apr 19 2025 at 10:37am
I am not an expert in economics, but because I am directly affected by both the economy and politics I know what is good for me and what is bad for me. I see decisions being made that harm me, without those decisions making sense or going through any deliberative, collaborative process. You have offered your reasons why you think the Trump administration’s economic policies should be implemented, but instead of the reasons you give every decision has an alternate explanation driven by what increases Trump’s personal wealth and power. Greed and malice are never good reasons for any decision. You, Mr. Platts, are reasoning from a political viewpoint (in multiple domains, like global warming) and are doing your best to manipulate reality to fit that viewpoint. That’s not how reality works.
This stuff is important, but what is happening is not how to fix it.
MarkW
Apr 19 2025 at 7:40am
President Trump was elected to fix this stuff
He was also elected to do other ‘stuff’, like grow the economy, not spook the stock and bond markets, increase unemployment, and cause a recession. He was elected to reduce inflation and the budget deficit- not further exacerbate the latter by causing government borrowing costs to spike. Like many politicians, he garnered votes by making promises that simply cannot all be fulfilled because they are contradictory and mutually incompatible. When it comes to managing trade and the economy, Trump can no more bend the markets to his will than King Canute could command the tides.
And how do you think you’re doing with your comments in convincing either the experts or lay readers here?
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 10:20am
“The curious task of economics [JMM: I would say any science] is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” -FA Hayek
John R. Samborski
Apr 19 2025 at 2:51pm
Are there really any astronomers who say the world is flat?
Jon Murphy
Apr 19 2025 at 2:59pm
Oh I’m sure there are. I’ve not met any, but my experience in life is you can find anyone to say anything
Warren Platts
Apr 19 2025 at 10:15pm
lol! There is no serious astronomer whether professional or amateur that thinks the Earth is flat! lol!
Jon Murphy
Apr 20 2025 at 7:22am
Likewise, there’s no serious economist that thinks trade deficits are per se bad. But there are a lot of charlatans who claim so.
Warren Platts
Apr 20 2025 at 12:37pm
I never trade deficits are per se bad. In fact, I explicitly said above that trade deficits can be good under certain circumstances. 19th century America comes to mind.
Jon Murphy
Apr 20 2025 at 12:52pm
You are constantly saying it. You said it in your first post here. You’ve been saying it for at least a decade. It’s proof we’re losing at trade. It’s why Trump was elected. We’re getting scammed. It’s exporting demand. It’s importing communism. So on and so forth. You constantly quote people, or should I say “channel,” people who claim trade deficits are per se bad. You’ve made it such a central part of your identity.
Good on you for coming around to the idea that trade deficits do not matter. But don’t act like it’s always been your point. You’re a protectionist and a mercantilist through and through.
Warren Platts
Apr 20 2025 at 2:09pm
Holy cow. This is what I wrote:
I also wrote:
But just because trade deficits can be good under those circumstances, it does not follow that trade deficits are good under all circumstances.
Jon Murphy
Apr 20 2025 at 7:49am
Although, Mr Platts, you’ve provided an easy way to make any astronomer a flat earther. Just declare that the President was elected because the Earth is flat. Therefore, anyone who disagrees the earth is flat would be a traitor.
Warren Platts
Apr 21 2025 at 7:05pm
Come 0n Jon. You’re not helping the economics profession by withholding information. Are you in some sort of guild in possession of esoteric secret information? I’m just the geologist, but I can think of all kinds of ways to unwind the trade deficit: (1) tariffs; (2) export subsidies; (3) capital controls; (4) quotas; (5) import bans; (6) radically devalue the dollar; (7) some sort of industrial policy; (8) force up savings by forcing down wages; (9) since we’re in the middle of Cold War 2, maybe the best thing would be to split the world into two, separate trading blocks: BRICS+ versus the WEST that are hermetically sealed off from each other. That way China’s trade surplus would be foisted on the Global South instead of USA. I’m sure there’s probably more options. It’s your job: which option(s) do you recommend?
Warren Platts
Apr 21 2025 at 7:17pm
I forgot (10) make threats of super-high tariffs and then go around the planet making bi-lateral trade “deals” with everyone. And I should rephrase my question. I know you think trade deficits don’t matter in the slightest. Thus I should rather ask which of these option(s) will do the least amount of damage? The problem is, if you economists refuse to provide any advice, then you’ll leave the decision-making to amateurs like me and Navarro and Trump!
Warren Platts
Apr 22 2025 at 6:54am
I forgot (11): we reanimate Keynes’ Bancor idea, have another Bretton-Woods moment, but this time make the Bancor the world’s reserve currency used for trade rather than the USD. I guess I could add (12): go back to an international gold standard…. What a smorgasbord of options! If you’re not going to help us, Jon, we MAGAs will help ourselves!
Knut P. Heen
Apr 22 2025 at 10:07am
An expert’s job is to be an expert, not to be a decision-maker.
PS.
Saying that there are good reasons to run trade deficits is not the same statement as saying that trade deficits do not matter.
Consider a full-time student who runs up debt to consume (a trade deficit). It may be a good idea to study full-time to get a degree at an expensive institution, but no serious economist would ever say that the amount of debt (trade deficit) the student is running up does not matter.
A retired person is also running a trade deficit (usually financed by savings), but even in this case the trade deficit matters because savings are limited.
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