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Laqueesha

U.S. States and countries with similar GDPs

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And roughly 4500 active nulcear warheads in the russian arsenal is nonsense right?

The butthurt in this thread is pretty funny...

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deleted - why bother

Edited by Mosh

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Of course Russia has a shit ton of nukes left and could do some serious damage, but quite a few other countries? Doubt it...

Mmmm...what are you doing at school ? Look here

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Bare in mind, people, that this is presumably not adjusted for PPP.

To make a broad example with arbitrary figures, people in the US might earn on average 50k a year, but accommodation costs them 30k a year, food 10k, buying a car another 10k. In Russia, people might earn 10k a year, but accommodation costs them 1k, food 1k, a car, 1k.

In our example, if we take it at face value (like the people reading into this US-GDP graph seem to be doing), the US takes in 50k, Russia takes in 10k - so the US is 5x richer, right? But in actual fact, what you've got to bare in mind that in our example, Russians can actually get more for their money, and are, at PPP, richer.

So, when you look at this graph and see that X state has the same GDP as Y country, just keep in mind that GDP on it's own doesn't actually really tell you anything. All this is even before you consider GDP per capita.

Edited by Pathy

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I don't know mate, it's not been my experience that Russian people have a lot of money or goods.

Two cars, a nice pad, a gun, flatscreen TV, a playstation, a computer, an MP3 player, a laptop, a lawnmower a tool kit, a washing machine, a fridge, a freezer ,a tumble drier (cuddley toy) and a sewing machine.... I don't think their standard of living honestly compares with that of the average American.

Some have absolutely loads, but most I've met have little by my standards.

Edited by Baff1

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LMAO which state is that that has the same GDP as Greece!!!

Sucks to be them.

Not really. CT is a pretty nice place... in fact it is one of the (if not the most) wealthiest.

It's also a pretty nice place to live. :cool:

Edited by Big Dawg KS

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A city (Washington, D.C.) with less than half a million people has a GDP comparable to that of a country with five million people, in this case, New Zealand.

Another coincidence: Washington, D.C. was struck by a minor earthqake during the summer of 2010. New Zealand was also struck by an earthquake (albiet major) in September 2010.

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Mmmm...what are you doing at school ? Look here

I did not realize that. I knew there were some, but not nearly that many... thanks for the info.

Also, school was almost 20 years ago. ;)

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I don't know mate, it's not been my experience that Russian people have a lot of money or goods.

Russia might be bit off the scale. I don't know how well typical Russian lives and what he can buy. But in here i bought house, nice 90s house, no need for any major repairs in years to come. Location is in heart of small town. cost me less than 100 000 €. And we have highest house-prices in a long time when i bought my house. Previous owner bought it with some 70 000€, when prices were low. I watched some american house-repair program and owner had house which was in need of some major repairs, was much bigger than house i'm having. He bought it with mere 500 000$. I don't know where he lived... Can you imagine how i burst into laughter?!

Sure locations do affect alot. I could have bought similar house with some 70 000€ in more remote location (10 kilometers from town) or approx 150 000-200 000€ in some large city. Still prices are way lower. My country placed it self into Colorado on that map, which has somewhat less people there than what we have. Half million maybe. If those guys has to buy house which costs some 5 times more than i bought mine i wonder where they get that money back? ... Hell i couldn't buy anything with such house prices, but would need to use our family's whole salary and other benefits to pay back my house loan to bank!!! Monthly payback would be some 3000-4000$.

So either i read/heard that 500 000$ wrong, or then there's something "wrong" in that map and how countries were placed there: 500 000$ per house, which is 5 times more then we here need to pay, in area where people earn only bit more than what we here in Finland do. Something has to be off. But what?

Edited by Second

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The gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is clearly very large.

The same applies within the countries of the European Union.

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We have a different level of poor people. They've all got cell phones and huge HDTV's in their shitty houses.

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I don't know mate, it's not been my experience that Russian people have a lot of money or goods.

Two cars, a nice pad, a gun, flatscreen TV, a playstation, a computer, an MP3 player, a laptop, a lawnmower a tool kit, a washing machine, a fridge, a freezer ,a tumble drier (cuddley toy) and a sewing machine.... I don't think their standard of living honestly compares with that of the average American.

Some have absolutely loads, but most I've met have little by my standards.

Russia was an arbitrary choice, represented with arbitrary statistics, that aren't real and I just used them to make an example. I thought it was pretty clear what I was doing was soley making an example of why plain old GDP doesn't tell us much.

In laymans terms, if you have a high income, but live in a country with a high cost of living, you're less well off than someone with a medium income, but living in a country with an extremely low cost of living. Thats why GDP adjusted for PPP is more relevant.

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We have a different level of poor people. They've all got cell phones and huge HDTV's in their shitty houses.

America, where even the poor people are fat.

Edited by Laqueesha

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Russia was an arbitrary choice, represented with arbitrary statistics, that aren't real and I just used them to make an example. I thought it was pretty clear what I was doing was soley making an example of why plain old GDP doesn't tell us much.

In laymans terms, if you have a high income, but live in a country with a high cost of living, you're less well off than someone with a medium income, but living in a country with an extremely low cost of living. Thats why GDP adjusted for PPP is more relevant.

I think your point is quite valid and I agree with it, but with my example of Russia I think we can see that while not an exact measure it can actually be seen to broadly represent things as they are.

The thing about the U.S. is that it is a country with a very low cost of living and very high average income. If we were to measure the price of an American car as a percentage of average national income, or the price of a loaf of bread as a percentage of average national income, I think you would start to see how much richer Americans are than most other people on the planet.

Edited by Baff1

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Well you've contradicted yourself there, whilst getting it both wrong and right in quick succession, really.

No, pure GDP cannot be used as a broad measure, if it's not adjusted to represent Per Capita and/or PPP. Its unreliable as an indicator of wealth.

However, what you talk about in your second paragraph is the concept of adjusting for PPP, which produces a much more reliable indicator of wealth.

So - first paragraph wrong (broad measure - no, bad, bad, a useless figure!), second paragraph correct (if we were to measure it proportionally to an average selection of goods, ie at PPP, a useful figure!)

Further reading about the GDP thing, & why it is not a reliable indicator on its own - there are naturally countries where pure GDP statistics will broadly match up with expectations about standards of living. That's just the law of average and healthy coincidence popping up. However, if you start to experiment with changing the numbers involved (GDP, population, PPP), you can mathematically see why GDP on its own is a flawed measurement.

Worked Example:

To begin with, lets introduce 2 countries with pure GDP figures and nothing else.

Country A (as not to get confused with real world this time), GDP $100 billion.

Country B, GDP $900 billion.

If we take GDP as a pure measurement of Standard of living, wealth or anything else, we are to conclude that Country B is richer. However, now lets introduce population.

Country A GDP $100 billion, population 100.

Country B, GDP $900 billion. Population, 50,000.

It should be pretty obvious on first inspection that people in Country A have higher per capita income. People in A have an income of $1bn per capita. People in Country B have an income of $18 million per capita. In actual fact, people in Country A have roughly 55 times the income of people in country B. So now, our conclusion from pure GDP is reversed; if we were to use GDP Per Capita as our value of measurement, we would conclude that Country A is better off.

But...!

....To complicate matters further still, we then introduce the cost of living or Price Levels into this. We could again play with our fictional numbers enough so that Country B's inhabitants actually end up better off at PPP, despite having significantly less Income per Capita.

We could make it so that although people in Country A take home 55 times what people in B take home, the cost of living in A is say, 70 times higher than in country B.

Alternatively, we could make it so that the cost of living in Country A is half of that in B - making the people in Country A twice as well off again!

Now, compare this to the initial conclusion based off pure GDP alone.

All this is intended to illustrate that GDP on its own is worthless - GDP per Capita ain't half bad, but GDP per Capita at PPP is a much more accurate indicator. Then of course, there are all kinds of indexes you can use to add to this, but that's getting too far into the economics, and i'm already scared i've made this too complicated!

To put this back in the real world, it would be wrong to see Russia with a lower GDP than the US and just assume that people in the US are better off. Now in this case, i'm sure Russia actually does have a lower standard of living, but it would be irresponsible of us to just assume that based off GDP alone - something I hope i've illustrated sufficiently well to not have to reiterate why at this point.

Source: Economics Degree. ;)

Edited by Pathy

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America, where even the poor people are fat.

It's odd, I think the poor are the fattest.

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It's odd, I think the poor are the fattest.

Common trend with higher standards of living. Matter of education and what kind people are more educated and who are not.

Poor are less intelligent/educated, less intelligent/educated eats lots of bad food (probably booze and beer included). Large quantities of bad food turns poor person fat. Healthy good food is commonly much more expensive.

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Rich people live more indolent life styles, eat richer food and more of it. They eat for pleasure and from an uninterupted food supply. They do not often do manual labour.

Which is why they are often fat.

If you are rich enough to have a car, why walk half a day to the water hole?

If you are rich enough to have a car why cycle to the shops?

If you have a lot of money, why build your own house, walk your own dog, dig your own garden?

Why not sit around the house and have a few drinks and snacks with your friends instead?

Watch some TV for recreation, play some playstation.

Keep your children in safe sanitised area's under supervision.

While poor children if they are bored have to go outside and make do with their footballs or climbing trees etc. (Running away from policemen!).

Edited by Baff1

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Rich people live more indolent life styles, eat richer food and more of it. They eat for pleasure and from an uninterupted food supply. They do not often do manual labour.

Might hold true is some 3rd world country, but with high western living standards it by studies turns other way around. Poor do physical labor but it hardly ever keeps them fit or burns enough calories (modern physical labor often is quite light physical work). Infact their physical fitness is less than with higher educated persons as they exercise less. They probably dont' think what they eat, they don't know how much they should eat it. Food which makes people gain fat easily is cheap.

I'm not talking about ultra-rich or extra-poor, or 3rd world cases. But this is pretty common trend.

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All the rich people I know, don't look buff.

They look well fed.

The only ones I know who don't look fat are those that do manual labour as part of their job.

Reading more books and articles about fitness doesn't a fitter person make. Living the life does.

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All the rich people I know, don't look buff.

They look well fed.

The only ones I know who don't look fat are those that do manual labour as part of their job.

Common misunderstandment. Researches speaks otherwise atleast in Europe, Baltic men being pretty much only exception.

Infact statics clearly state that persons who do "physically demanding job" aren't more physically fit than people who are pencil pushers. Amount of exercise is main factor here, it determes fatness and physical fitness, and amount of exercise can be seen according persons education (higher or lesser degree). Better educated people exercise more.

There are some heavy jobs such as being lumberjack who works with chainsaw and his shoulders (ah those days!). But those jobs are really rare in modern society, and "hard physical job" is more likely "light physical activity". :D

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