It is half a stat. When the trade deficit number is "good" the economy is bad and vice very much versa. It's ONLY fucntion is to make a good economy look bad.
--and it doesn't stop there:
What about our labor shortage-- employers are even hiring illegals because they can't get any applicants. Then there's also the fact that every time somebody makes a bigger fortune we have greater income disparity between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor.
No wait --I'm just getting started!
We go from $20 trill net worth ($25T assets - 4$T debt) to $50 trillion ($61T-$10T) ---that's bad because we have more debt now! Interest rates up? -- we're being gouged by the evil bank lenders. Rates down? Miserly bankers won't pay us for what our savings are worth!
Face it-- anyone who never believed the conjecture about the infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards, has never visited the freerepublic.