I was discussing something like this with an economist friend recently. His view was that most economists (rightly I think) focus on consumption not production.

I was discussing something like this with an economist friend recently. His view was that most economists (rightly I think) focus on consumption not production. In theory, you can run a trade deficit forever to keep consuming more than you produce. Where I think the model probably breaks down is that you can't have infinite debt levels, so your consumption growth is capped by your production growth. I would think you run out of assets (e.g., Manhattan, London real estate) to sell to net-export economies, but I guess there's always financial innovation to bring you new products to sell