Laughing all the Way to the Bank
American states renamed for countries with a comparable GDP
The evident policy disaster in Iraq has been terribly damaging for American prestige in the world. One result is that it has become common “over here” – and, we suspect, in many other places – to presume that the United States has seen its day. Descriptions of the country as “the former Superpower” are now standard components in the foreign policy debate in places like Italy and we have recently seen an important strategic study sponsored by the Italian Government which seems to take as its major premise the decline and disappearance of American influence.
The very interesting map above – a bigger and more easily legible version is available (here) – is a clear reminder that such thinking may be premature. We’ve put it up primarily for our non-US readers, who are by far the majority, but it might also help stateside Americans to gain a little perspective.
They may find it useful for instance to remember that, when Russia’s Mr. Putin rattles his sabers, he is speaking for a country whose economy is now about the size of that of New Jersey – or to be reminded that the little and not much respected Garden State is in fact a genuine economic powerhouse…
Though we’re guessing most our readers are people who already know this, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a conventional measure of the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. In text books, it is summed up this way: GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)
It is sometimes hard to grasp just how big the US is in every way. In this case the perspective is that of economic power. It is a commonplace to point out that this or that American state has an economy the size of some country, but “Upper Italy” finds it useful to look at this concept as a system, composed of parts ranging from California, the largest of the US economies with a statewide GDP roughly equivalent to that of France, to little (economically) Wyoming, which amounts in GDP terms to Uzbekistan.
At any rate, the total US GDP is projected to be something like $13.22 trillion (or $13,220 billion) in 2007. That’s almost as much as the next four largest economies (Japan, Germany, China, UK) taken together. You can find GDP estimates from the 2007 CIA World Factbook (here).
After the collapse of the old Soviet Union, many people in the world are now emotionally wedded to the idea of American decline even though there is not much evidence of it. The clarity with which numbers like these confute the argument will inevitably be found intimately offensive by some. They will want to reply that “money isn’t everything.” Well, in this context it is. Especially on this scale and as a liquid and portable form of power.
The excellent GDP map comes from a site, “Strange Maps” – (here) – that is well worth a visit. The author also offers a much more detailed and better informed analysis than we have proposed here and you should go read it.
Italy by the way does not appear because the size of its GDP has no close analog among the American states. Its economy (estimated GDP for 2007, $1.78 trillion) is marginally smaller that those of the UK and France and substantially larger than the Canadian, Spanish and Indian economies, in that order.
1.07.07
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