> "Each of you in your private household would know better than that. You don’t regard it as a favorable balance when you have to send out more goods to get few

> "Each of you in your private household would know better than that. You don’t regard it as a favorable balance when you have to send out more goods to get fewer coming in. It’s favorable when you can get more by sending out less.” - Milton Friedman Being obsessed about trade deficit is missing the forest for the trees. If you can run a successful modern economy just by sending out slips of paper, that's a great deal. That said, even Friedman made a caveat for national defense. If war breaks out and you have no manufacturing capacity, there are theoretically bad problems there. It also doesn't account for cultural concerns. Maybe a country that doesn't have enough manual labor jobs develops weakness and stagnation?