ABSTRACT
The costs of Latin America loans would decline, and we would be leaving more capital for investment in their economies. The central thesis of the Reagan drive for power was that the nation had been in decline for some time, and that a restoration of military and economic energy was critical. Although there is alarm about our economic situation, no recognition of its political genesis exists. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department defines this to be the difference between US assets abroad and foreign assets in the United States. Equally disturbing is the negative trend in the US account balance—the broadest measure of US international transactions, including merchandise trade, investment income, services trade, travel receipts, military transfers, and some other unilateral transfers. However, most economists recognize that the US debt position is not a positive development.
