I personally beleive in personal, not governmental Merchantilism. That is the idea of when including total cost of a good, including the probabilistic cost that the money spent will never re-enter the local market.
In terms of the game, Monopoly, if I want to create wealth, I have an exchange of money between four players. If each player pays the next player $4000 from turn to turn, they have gained $4000 for their services, for which they want to purchase $4000 of a good.
I just read a viewpoint from an economist of why the U.S. Trade Deficit is not such a bad thing. It disproves some "common sense" knowledge by looking at the Trade deficit as the equation not just involving exports and imports, but the balance of:
Savings - Investment = Exports - Imports
The negative export/import value is balanced by a large inflow of investments. On the balance sheet, the investments have hopefully led to more net capital, but there is an increase in corresponding liabilities.
Posted by ledlogic at October 30, 2004 06:28 PM