U.S. external debt

[Doug Henwood]

I just got around to plugging the June flow of funds numbers into my
various spreadsheets, and discovered, to my amazement, that as of the first
quarter of 1998, the U.S. net credit market debt position with the outside
world was -$1.77 trillion dollars. Good thing it's a new era - might be
worrisome otherwise.

Doug

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US CREDIT MARKET POSITION WITH REST OF WORLD
(billions of dollars)

                net      assets  liabilities

      1952      10.0      15.0       5.0

      1953      10.2      15.7       5.6

      1954      10.2      16.4       6.2

      1955       9.9      16.5       6.5

      1956       9.8      17.1       7.3

      1957      10.8      18.2       7.3

      1958      13.0      20.0       7.0

      1959      11.0      21.2      10.2

      1960      10.2      22.4      12.3

      1961      11.7      24.4      12.7

      1962      12.8      26.9      14.0

      1963      14.0      29.6      15.6

      1964      17.0      33.1      16.1

      1965      20.2      36.8      16.6

      1966      22.3      38.7      16.5

      1967      24.3      42.1      17.8

      1968      27.0      45.1      18.1

      1969      29.1      48.1      19.1

      1970      25.7      50.8      25.1

      1971       8.3      54.7      46.4

      1972      -3.2      59.1      62.2

      1973      -5.3      65.1      70.4

      1974       6.9      75.7      68.9

      1975       9.7      88.9      79.2

      1976      18.4     106.8      88.4

      1977       4.6     122.2     117.7

      1978     -15.9     143.2     159.1

      1979       5.0     166.1     161.2

      1980      10.6     185.5     174.9

      1981       4.1     211.0     206.9

      1982     -34.7     200.9     235.5

      1983     -52.6     221.0     273.6

      1984     -83.8     236.5     320.4

      1985    -159.9     234.9     394.8

      1986    -263.7     239.9     503.6

      1987    -340.8     239.8     580.6

      1988    -423.1     249.3     672.4

      1989    -510.0     256.4     766.4

      1990    -590.8     275.3     866.1

      1991    -615.6     294.4     910.1

      1992    -686.3     306.9     993.1

      1993    -726.5     357.9   1,084.3

      1994    -861.0     362.4   1,223.4

      1995  -1,033.7     412.4   1,446.1

      1996  -1,314.3     480.0   1,794.3

      1997  -1,631.4     539.2   2,170.6

      1998  -1,768.7     571.3   2,340.0