I find that many people really do underestimate how large the U.S. economy is compared to other countries. The chart below, provided by Mark Perry at Carpe Diem, replaces the names of states with the name of a country that has a similiar GDP.
You can look up the data for U.S. states here
and for foriegn countries here.
4 comments:
That is a very cool post!
People also underestimate how much the U.S. is worth, somewhere between 200 and 300 trillion dollars. It surprises me that this isn't brought up more often, since with personal finances your net worth is what is used to determine your credit-worthiness. A couple Trillion in debt doesn't look to bad when stacked up against our net worth. If you had $300K in assets, and you were to borrow $2k, this wouldn't be unreasonable. The bigger travesty here is why we should even be in debt at all when so many of our vast assets (think undeveloped land in the West) are underutilized.
It's not only our being in debt it's what that debt was used to "buy" for us. Essentially to cover up the sloppy whims of our elected officials.
Burro--Interesting point. Most U.S. wealth is private. It's our government that is essentially in debt and that hooks us with taxes to pay for their programs.
It is a travesty that states like Nevada has so much of its territory under Federal control.
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