THE NEW BRITISH (AND US) ECONOMIC DISEASE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_exports 

The British are fond of blaming Europe for regulations which hamper British competitiveness. Environmental legislation is an increasingly popular target for Conservative politicians, and even more so for the United Kingdom Independence Party. Similarly, I note that there are many in the United States who like to blame increasing regulation to protect the environment for the country's declining status as an exporter. In this context, the above link to Wikipedia's "list of countries by net exports", based on World Trade Organisation data, should help reframe the issue of national export competitiveness. For it is, in fact, the European Union which is the world's largest net exporter, due largely to the success of Germany which comes second, followed by China. The US and the UK, on the other hand, are the first and second largest net importers in the world. From a domestic perspective - I have not visited the US for many years - this status now constitutes a "British Disease" as much as the malady of that name in the 1970s. According to an article on the German www.zum.de website the original "British Disease refers to the low industrial productivity and frequent labor strifes that plagued Britain in the 1960s and 1970s".* This earlier malady required  transformational government, of the kind I do not yet see any prospect of in the UK, or the United States for that matter. This is a real problem because, I would argue, many of the transformations that have occurred since the 1970s now need to be reversed. 

 * Full article http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/changhyun/Thatcher70s2.html