This comment was made this week at http://www.macrobusiness.com.au  (link may be locked

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/02/trade-deficit-halves-december/#comment-1054729

Superb effort by an economy enjoying a once in the lifetime mining boom.

A deficit of $2.26 B

Just think how much better we will do when those mining volumes catch a cold.

With my Dick Smith catalogue beside me lets see what $2.26B equates to

iPad Air 2 16GB at $618

That’s about 3.6 million iPads we bought on credit because we did not sell enough stuff to foreigners.

Those sort of numbers melt the brain so lets try something more expensive.

Toyota Corolla drive away $24,000

http://www.toyota.com.au/special-offers/2015-JAN-02/4002?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=SEM|GOO|SCH|Corolla_Ascent_Hatch|Retail&gclid=CJywmaTmxMMCFU9wvAodEaUAYA

That trade deficit for December is about 94,000 Toyota Corollas.

Crikey!

That is almost exactly the number of new car sales in December

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/9314.0Main+Features1Dec%202014?OpenDocument

Weird coincidence.

Wonder what the value was of imported new cars sold in December. All those fancy European and Japanese cars must cost more $24,000

Perhaps we could achieve a trade surplus just by not buying imported cars.

When we stop making them our imports of cars should help nicely to pump up that trade deficit even higher.

Thanks goodness those off shore lenders don’t realize how crafty we are – taking their money and buying ourselves new cars.

Our earnings as Uber drivers will help us pay back the loans – lol.