a question for the gold bugs, page-22

& the AUD won't appreciate against the USD as most people are predicting:

"What a strange economy Australia has. A country in the midst of a record boom still manages to run a trade deficit. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the February trade deficit blew out by 30%, from a revised $2.59 billion in January to $3.29 billion in February.

Exports fell by 4%, or about $18.2 billion in the month. The big laggards were metal ores, minerals, and coal. Metal ores and mineral exports fell by 18% in the month, or $624 million. Coal exports fell by 16%, or $281 million. Coal and metal ores weren't exactly being lazy. You can blame the weather (flooding) and continued bottlenecks in export infrastructure.

There is a simple explanation for Australia's trade deficit: the country really doesn't make much. How else can you explain something that's been a regular feature of the economic landscape for the past 75 months? From our quick scan of the figures at the ABS, the last time the country ran a monthly trade surplus was in October of 2001."