The cognitive dissonance necessary to come to the conclusion that the reason countries of the entire planet are massively in debt is due to trade deficits is astounding. If that was the case shouldn't the debt essentially add up to zero due to the balance of debtor and creditor nations? The problem is much more fundamental than trade deficits but an extremely strong tendency within society and especially academia to follow along with group think while discarding logic and the consequences of specialization which shuts down the ability to take a broad view leaves that mechanism languishing in obscurity.