On 5 Sep 2006 09:37:45 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

I suspect that ICBMs will become more affordable, relatively
speaking, for U.S. adversaries in the future. The U.S. economy
is steadily weakening, relative to much of the rest of the world,
as the U.S. fritters its dollars away on more and more on
imported products.

How is that "frittering away our dollars"?

U.S. GDP growth has slowed relative to earlier years and relative to
some other economies, as its trade deficit has grown.

Correlation is not causation.

By mid-century, the U.S. will no longer be the world's No. 1 economy,
and may be on the verge of falling to No. 3.

It's foolish to extrapolate a trend too far, but even if that's true,
it's not because of an imaginary "trade deficit." It's inevitable
that nations with much larger populations than ours will eventually
have economies larger as well, if their standard of living continues
to increase.