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CIA's World Factbook - Purchasing Power Parity (ppp) Top 5

 
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1. US, $10.082 trillion (2001 est.)
2. China, $5.56 trillion (2001 est.)
3. Japan, $3.45 trillion (2001 est.)
4. India, $2.5 trillion (2001 est.)
5. Germany, $2.174 trillion (2001 est.)
Does this mean China is world No. 2 already? I don't think so.
 
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First you would have to know all of the parameters that influence the calculation of the Purchasing Power Parity.
China is a BIIIIIIIIG place. Even if you only add up the small amounts purchased by each family for their daily food intake it adds up to alot.
 
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Perhaps if you took those figures and divided by population to get purchasing power per head, it would become a lot more clearer?
 
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Originally posted by Mark Fletcher:
Perhaps if you took those figures and divided by population to get purchasing power per head, it would become a lot more clearer?


Correct..you beat me to it
But what is real interesting is the population demographics concenring who produces the most new programmers!
Europe has become a welfare state with increasing aged population and decreasing new worker population..US with its influx of imigriants is keepign even with place sboth in Asia and parts of Russia..
Which all have increasses in amount of new workers comapred to aged poulation..
I don;t know about the Middle East as of yet stil trying to find a good article with numbers on it..
The onther article with numbers is in register or reuters..for the Europe numbers
 
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Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) - The theory that, in the long run, identical products and services in different countries should cost the same in different countries. This is based on the belief that exchange rates will adjust to eliminate the arbitrage opportunity of buying a product or service in one country and selling it in another. The theory makes some assumptions that don't hold in the real world, such as ignoring the effects of transportation costs and tariffs.
Real per capita GDP in dollars according to Purchasing Power Parity: Per capita GDP of a country converted to US dollars to equalize purchasing power to the currency of a country. The UNDP has used Purchasing Power Parity for international GDP comparisons. These comparisons will be more accurate than comparisons based on exchange rates which are extremely unstable.
GDP per capita (PPP US$), 2000
  1. Luxembourg - 50,061
  2. United States - 34,142
  3. Norway - 29,918
  4. Ireland - 29,866
  5. Iceland - 29,581
  6. Switzerland - 28,769
  7. Canada - 27,840
  8. Denmark - 27,627
  9. Belgium - 27,178
  10. Austria - 26,765


  11. PPP is used to attempt to provide an equivalency when comparing monetary values in cases such as this. I'm not sure, but I believe the numbers that Don provided are actually GDP using PPP.
    [ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
First you would have to know all of the parameters that influence the calculation of the Purchasing Power Parity.
China is a BIIIIIIIIG place. Even if you only add up the small amounts purchased by each family for their daily food intake it adds up to alot.


A economic report from CIA? this is pretty wired to me in the first place.
No, China is far from No. 2, considering her large population and lagging technology in many areas.
 
Cindy Glass
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Sigh.
Don.
Chinas population in 2001 was 1,260,000,000.
If their PPP was $5.56 trillion then it works out to $4,413 per person.
The US population in 2001 was 281,422,000. If the PPP was $10.082 trillion and it works out to 35,825 per person.
So the people in the United States are about 8 or 9 times as rich as the people in China by this measure.
Sounds reasonable to me. What is YOUR problem with those numbers?
 
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I spend about 200 dollars (=6300 Indian Rs)per month on my grocery in Canada. For the same things I would not pay more than 3000 Rs in India.
I pay 1050 dollars apartment rent monthly. That would be >30000 Rs. For the same apartment in Delhi (not the same standard though) I would pay 6000 max.
If my employer gave me the same salary in India I could hire someone to brush my teeth.
Clearly conversion rates of currencies is not the true reflection of the buying power.
I am wondering if sometime in the future when economies are more integrated will the western currencies get devalued as compared to other currencies.
 
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i really hate those kinds of figures. they lead to much of the misunderstanding in the world. 35,000 may be some kind of average in the US but probably 80% of the population make a lot less than that. seem to remember there is median, mean and mode, but i cant remember which is which.
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by Cindy Glass:
Sigh.
Don.
Chinas population in 2001 was 1,260,000,000.
If their PPP was $5.56 trillion then it works out to $4,413 per person.
The US population in 2001 was 281,422,000. If the PPP was $10.082 trillion and it works out to 35,825 per person.
So the people in the United States are about 8 or 9 times as rich as the people in China by this measure.
Sounds reasonable to me. What is YOUR problem with those numbers?


Cindy, you are absolutly correct. In fact, I think you probablly underestimate the richness of American compared to Chinese.
My point is simply this: the report comes from CIA, so it has security background.
Taking any country, multiple everything(population, income,...) by two, you will get a new country, same rich as the old one, as the GDP per capital is the same. But the new doubled country will have more strength, for sure.
That is why countries like China and India, will pose far more unstability than countries like Switzland and Luxanburg.
But of course, I am sure Chinese and Indian are all peace-loving people. So I believe I won't see a nuclear war in my life!
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by Jason Menard:
[b]I'm not sure, but I believe the numbers that Don provided are actually GDP using PPP.
[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]


Hi Jason:
You are correct, all the number are GDP using PPP. Please refer to CIA web page for detail.
Choose a country, then you will find the data in economic section.
[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Don Liu ]
 
Cindy Glass
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Originally posted by Don Liu:
My point is simply this: the report comes from CIA, so it has security background.



Well the CIA publishes lots of stuff. That does not necessarily make it the gospel truth. However these numbers SEEM realistic to me.
However the fact that China has that big a PPP does not mean that it has ANY disposable maney available to use on stuff like nuclear weapons. If every penny is required to sustain life, there is not much of a threat there.
Randy, I agree, numbers like these can give weird impressions. For instance, for a family of 5 the implication is that there should be about $180,000 per year hiding somewhere. I can assure you that there is nothing like that lurking around MY family .
But then, that is not what those numbers were MEANT to be used for.

Besides, Bill Gates is really skewing the numbers .
 
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Originally posted by Randall Twede:
seem to remember there is median, mean and mode, but i cant remember which is which.


The mean is sum of all values in a list divided by their number of elements in the list.
The median is the the value 'in the middle' of an ordered list of numbers.
The mode is the number in a list that occurs most often.
if memory serves...
 
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if memory serves...
Yup, that's right. Though in a context like this a weighted mean would be more appropriate than a straight mean. E.g. if country A has 1 million people who all make $100,000 per year, and country B has 100 million people who all make $10,000 per year... the mean of 10,000 and 100,000 is $55,000, but so what? Since country B is so much more populous, it's more useful to calculate a mean weighted by population:
( (1,000,000 * $100,000) + (100,000,000 * $10,000) ) / (1,000,000 + 100,000,000)
which gives an average yearly wage of ~ $10,891 (much closer to the average for B).
[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
 
Randall Twede
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thanks michael.
the mode income in the US would then be about $15000 before taxes.
when you have one bill gates and a million people making minimum wage you get a mean of $35000
i think another reason people in other countries think american are all rich is that the only americans they see are the ones who are rich enough to spend vacations abroad. and even most of them spend more while on vacation than they normally would.
[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Randall Twede ]
 
John Lee
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Originally posted by Cindy Glass:

However the fact that China has that big a PPP does not mean that it has ANY disposable maney available to use on stuff like nuclear weapons. If every penny is required to sustain life, there is not much of a threat there.


No disposable maney available to use on stuff like nuclear weapons?
I can tell you this: China's nuclear weapon is perhaps 10-20 years behind US, and don't have nearly as much as US. But China can sink any country in 10 minutes.
[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Don Liu ]
 
John Lee
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After read all of the replys, one question comes to my mind: what is your biggest asset?
When you talk to a life insurance agent, he probably will tell you: the biggest asset is your lifetime money earning power.
 
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