En réponse à "Thomas R. Wier" <[log in to unmask]>:

>
> This is actually false, both factually and analytically.  The
> United States is the second richest nation on the planet, according
> to this list:
>
> <http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/gdp_per_capita_0.html>

Well, according to a source that I don't find very trustworthy (since when do
you trust the CIA? :))) ). Too bad I cannot find the one I had anymore, but it
basically agreed with the figure for the US, but all other countries were
different (for instance, Luxembourg was first, but with $45000 or so. And the
Netherlands were fourth or fifth - I remember it clearly because it was the
first country which was not a small city state on the list, Luxemburg excepted
of course :)) -. IIRC the US were not 15th or so (I was exaggerating), but at
the end of the first ten. If only I could find the source I had... I found
other figures, but they all have the same source (and yet make for different
rankings, strangely enough). For some reason I don't remember, I found the
source very trustworthy. It had to do with the UN, again IIRC. And the figures
were from the year 2000.

So I could say that the list you showed is false too. The simple fact that I
found many different figures and lists when surfing to find the source I had
shows me that everything should be taken with a grain of salt. So I won't
pretend that what I saw was correct, but I won't take for granted the list you
showed either. Like for many things, the truth is probably somewhere in between.

> (I do not believe this is adjusted for purchasing power parity,
> which takes into account how much you can buy in a given society
> with a given amount of money. American labor and commodity costs
> are considerably lower than in Europe, which means that the raw
> GDP hides a certain amount of American wealth.)
>

That I agree on. But it doesn't take into account things like the cost of
services like health and education, which are in average more expensive in
America than in Europe (for the end user I mean :)) ). So things balance out.

> What makes the US so powerful is that it is not only very wealthy,
> it is wealthy with such a large population.

IMHO the only reason the US are so powerful. It is after all the most populous
country of the First World.

  If you take the per
> capita GDP, adjusted for PPP, as a whole of the US, and compare
> that with all the other first world nations, the US comes out to
> be about $37,000, or about one third or more richer than almost
> all of them, including the big ones like France, Germany, and
> Britain.

I agree on that. It was the same with my list. But there were still a few more
countries in front of the US, and not only city states.

  Note too that on this list, almost all the ones in the
> top ten are *very* small; using them is rather like comparing
> cities to nations, and so probably not a very accurate measurement.

True if you take your list. With the list I had I'd disagree on that statement.
Maybe the figures they had were adjusted for something (but I don't remember it
so).

> Some European countries are approximately as wealthy; Switzerland
> has about the same GDP per capita adjusted for PPP.  But Switzerland
> has a population smaller than quite a few US states, and so its
> influence on the world economy, though disproportionate to its
> raw population, is relatively small.  If we counted Switzerland
> on the list, it would only be fair to count New Jersey, which has
> about a million more population than Switzerland, but a GDP per
> capita about double that of France, Britain or Germany.  Or if
> we count Singapore, why not count Washington DC, which has a per
> capita GDP roughly four times that of France, Great Britain or
> Germany, at $107,576? (you can find that here:
> <http://www.demographia.com/db-usgdpr99.htm>) Indeed, the *poorest*
> US state, West Virginia, is about as wealthy as Britain or France
> on the same scale.  The US is bathed in a kind of sybaritic wealth
> unprecedented in human history on such a scale, which is worrying,
> in its own way.
>

The problem is that your comparison would be right if American states had their
own foreign policies and their own seats in the UN. But as far as I know as for
foreign affairs the US are still a single block, and viewed so. So even when
comparing the international influence of places, your comparison doesn't make
sense.

Anyway, since we have different sources which say pretty different things, it's
not quite possible to ever agree with each other. So I suggest the discussion
should be closed, before it becomes a flame war (funny, I'm not in the mood for
fighting today ;)) ).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.