My colleagues at the New America Foundation have made a pretty neat website to track countries that have large trade surpluses, exporting more than they import.
These economies are deemed to pose a threat to the functioning of the global economy, because they subtract demand out of the world economy at a time of weak global aggregate demand and because they pose an obstacle to the adjustment policies deficit economies must undertake to avoid or to get out of financial crises.
The Obama administration has made it a priority to find some way to regulate these imbalances to create sustainable global growth, something that will be discussed at tomorrow's G-20 summit in Seoul. Basically, though, if you have a large current account surplus, you don't like the Fed's monetary policy and you don't like the U.S. pressuring China to revalue its currency.
-- Tim Fernholz
