In our global economy, the massive consumer surplus generated by free services is primarily spent on the consumption of imported goods.

FORBES: Corporate Tax 2.0: Why France and the World Need a New Tax System for the Digital Age

The Department for Education (DfE) responded to the claim that many free schools are in areas with surplus places by saying "the LGA is wrong".

BBC: LGA head: 'Government should reassess new free schools'

Surplus liquidity currently sits interest-free in Syria's central bank.

ECONOMIST: Syria's government bonds

It says that in Suffolk with three secondary free schools, there will be a 28% surplus in secondary school places.

BBC: Free schools 'in areas of surplus places', says NUT

America ran a surplus that was on track to be debt-free by next year.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama at Clinton Global Initiative

In Bedford, the NUT says a secondary free school is being funded when there will be a 25% surplus at secondary age and 38% shortfall in primary places.

BBC: Free schools 'in areas of surplus places', says NUT

This week it grew stronger after two Western news agencies reported that farmers would be free to decide what to do with a larger share of their grain surplus, after handing over a quota to the state.

ECONOMIST: North Korea

In pitching the very same bilateral trade agreements two and three years ago that the business community is pitching today, then-USTR Susan Schwab liked to remind Congress that the United States had an aggregate trade surplus with the countries with whom the Bush administration had concluded free trade agreements, as though that were the appropriate success metric.

FORBES: Embracing More Of Trade's Virtues