ABSTRACT
THE problems of international trade lie deeper than relative rates of inflation. There is no particular reason to expect trade for each country to balance in a market economy. Nations, in various shapes and sizes, are formed by history and geography without any regard to economic convenience. As population grows and tastes and technology change, the pattern of demand and supply of various goods and services in the trading world is constantly shifting; at any moment the inhabitants of one patch of the earth's surface find that their resources, natural or accumulated, their skills and inventiveness, their market connections and business acumen, make it easy to sell more to the rest than they need to buy from them, while another is finding it very hard.
