Remember “global imbalances”? The lopsided economic relationships between exporting nations like China, Japan, Germany, and the OPEC nations on the one side and importers — mainly the U.S. — on the other were a big topic a couple years ago. Some even argued that they’d caused the financial crisis. But you don’t hear nearly as much about them now. I did a quick search on Factiva to verify this impression: 495 mentions of the phrase “global imbalances” in the first three months of 2009; 175 mentions in the first three months of this year.