Macro Economics - all in balance

There is a great graphic, from the book I just bought.


http://neweconomicperspectives.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/untitled-32.png






As you can see, it's a mirror image -- whenever one sector runs a surplus, the other match in deficit, or vice versa.  Note the interesting thing isn't just the deficit spending, but the scope of the spending versus GDP, and the heavy private sector debt in the 90's and 2000's.    The biggest thing, though, is that we used to export, or at least balance, but for recent decades we've imported a TON of stuff.

So, it's not the deficit per se, but the scope that is unusual.   There is also the long-term notion of overall debt loads, versus yearly balances.  I'm not sure what that does, beyond adding debt service as an obligation.