Do worries never cease? Now that the Federal Reserve has reduced the federal funds rate to a four-decade low, responding to economic weakness that continued longer than most economists predicted, a new villain has appeared. Sometimes identified as deflation, sometimes as a liquidity trap, the...

United States trade and current-account deficits have risen sharply in recent years. The current account deficit reached 4.27 percent of GDP in the second quarter of 2000, and will probably exceed that slightly in the third quarter. The U.S. trade deficit reached 4.06 percent of GDP in the...