The Gap Trap?

"[F]or the first time in at least 90 years, the U.S. is paying noticeably more to its foreign creditors than it receives from its investments abroad. The gap reached $2.5 billion in the second quarter of 2006. In effect, the U.S. made a quarterly debt payment of about $22 for each American household, a turnaround from the $31 in net investment income per household it received a year earlier."




So reports Mark Whitehouse in the WSJ: U.S. Foreign Debt Shows Its Teeth As Rates Climb (You need a ticket to read.) Here'r a few more outtakes:

The gap is still small within the context of the $13 trillion American economy. And the trend could reverse if U.S. interest rates decline. But economists say America's emergence as a net payer illustrates an important point: In years to come, a growing share of whatever prosperity the nation achieves probably will be sent abroad in the form of debt-service payments. That means Americans will have to work harder to maintain the same living standards -- or cut back sharply to pay down the debt.

Since the end of 2001, when the current economic expansion began, the nation's consumption, investment and other outlays have exceeded income by a cumulative $2.9 trillion -- the largest gap on record. That current-account deficit contributes directly to the nation's total foreign debt, the value of all the U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate, businesses and other assets owned by non-U.S. residents. As of the end of 2005, total U.S. foreign debt stood at $13.6 trillion -- or about $119,000 per household. Net foreign debt, which excluded the $11.1 trillion value of U.S.-owned foreign assets, was $2.5 trillion.

Exactly how the U.S. has managed to load on so much debt without seeing its net payments rise remains something of a mystery. Even in the second quarter, the U.S., in effect, was paying only a 0.4% annualized interest rate on its net debt. "It's still quite a good deal," says Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

In a recent paper, Harvard economists Ricardo Hausmann and Federico Sturzenegger went so far as to suggest that the U.S. might not be a net debtor at all. Instead, they surmised, the U.S. might actually have income-producing assets abroad, such as know-how transferred to foreign subsidiaries, that have evaded measurement -- assets they call "dark matter," after a similarly elusive quarry in physics.

Long-term rates remain low, but the Federal Reserve has raised short-term rates to 5.25% from a low of 1% in June 2004. As a result, payments on U.S. government debt, much of which is short-term, have risen. In the second quarter, for example, the government's debt payments to foreigners rose 10% to $36 billion, accounting for most of the change in the balance of income.