Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

Christophe slabronten:
> En réponse à "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
>
> >
> > 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? :))) ).
Seriously, if you don't trust the CIA, I could produce exactly
analogous figures from the OECD or other governments (which,
of course, would inflate their rating as it is their self-interest).

> 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 :)) -.
There's nothing unusual in varying statistics.  New data come in
all the time, and there are countless organizations with agendas
to push.  However, usually they do not lie as such:  they merely
adjust the manner in which the data are presented, and reduce to
a footnote how the data was compiled in the first place.  For example,
it would be in the interest of the PR China to use GDP-PPP
because, although the raw dollar amount of their economy is low,
labor and commodity costs are there so low that their total GDP
($1.309 bn) ranks second only to the US in GDP-PPP (China having
$4.5 bn or so) .  France, however, with a raw GDP of $1.47 bn and
GDP-PPP of $1.44bn, has a self-interest in listing itself higher
than China and so a self-interest in using raw GDP.  So, there's
nothing new in varying accounts.

> 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).
Not strange at all, as I have just shown. Different lists are
used for different purposes, too, beyond the self-interests of
the parties involved:  the OECD lists only memberstates' data,
and so countries like Bermuda, though very high, won't appear
at all.

> 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.
You could indeed assert that the list I gave was flawed, but that
assertion would have little value unless you could show that a variety
of organizations putting out such lists, with differing self-interests,
all showed something contrary to the one that I provided. So far, you
have provided no list at all. I hope you will excuse me if I do not
simply go by a recollection of yours.

> > (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.
How do they balance out? I will agree that they balance out if you
could at least provide some data points in support of your claim.
So far, you have not done so.  I can assure you that unselfinterested
parties (the Treasury of Canada, and the OECD, and the Economist
magazine, for example) will back up my claim.

(Try <http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/rma/eppi-ibdrp/SI/prr2001/gdp_e.asp>)

> > 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.
I'm not sure you understand what those two facts actually mean.
Great wealth means nothing more than having access to a large amount
of material resources, and great population means having access to
a large amount of human resources (ideas, skills, beliefs, etc. in
addition to raw muscle power). "Power" for our purposes is defined
as the ability to marshall material and human resources toward a
particular goal.  So, when you say that the "only" reason is these
two facts, you are speaking tautologously.

> > 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.
Yes, yes. You keep making this claim, and yet you have not provided
any list to suggest this in the least. If only you would provide
*some* data in support of your claim, this discussion would be
resolved.

> >  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).
Again, where is this list? I'd be happy to say I was wrong if you
can provide convincing evidence to the contrary.  I just find that
unlikely, since uninterested parties also agree that the US is by
far the richest large country in the world.

> > 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? [snip]
>
> 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, by this standard, Taiwan is not a nation-state? It has its own
military, its own foreign relations, its own currency, and yet it
has no seat in the UN.  In fact, you are only partly right:  the
individual US states have ceded most of their foreign policy powers
to the federal government, and yet one cannot read a newspaper in the
Southwestern US frequently without reading about this or that act
which has affected the relationship between one of the states and
Mexico, and indeed between US states and Mexican states.  I'm not
just talking about economic initiatives:  I'm also talking about
social policy.  Texas and California are well-known to have very
different attitudes to our neighbors to the south, Texas being
generally with a few notable exceptions more easy-going than
California, and decisions that are made in Austin and Sacramento
are often of greater economic or scientific import than those that
occur in Bratislava or Asuncion. (I do not, of course, mean to suggest
that the nations with said capitals are unimportant as such.)

> So even when comparing the international influence of places,
> your comparison doesn't make sense.
My point in talking about the size of US states was to try to
break you out of a perceived mentality that the only thing
that matters in the world is state-to-state governmental relations.
Switzerland is in an independent federal state, and yet its impact
on the world economy, science, and culture is roughly the same as
New Jersey (perhaps less in some ways).  Why then (to get back to
the origina of this debate) should the capital of one be learnt
by rote, while the capital of another is entirely ignored?

To sum up, here's the message I've been getting from you:  you
seem to have been trying to justify the system of geography
used in your country (which IMO may be fine for its own purposes),
and along the way have made some to all appearances entirely false
claims, and then when this was pointed out, you did not attempt to
bring forth additional data that suggests you were correct.

> Anyway, since we have different sources which say pretty different
> things, it's not quite possible to ever agree with each other.
No, I believe it is possible to agree.  But agreement can only
occur when discussants agree on the terms of the debate, and
that cannot be said to have occurred since no common data has
been agreed upon.

> So I suggest the discussion should be closed, before it becomes
> a flame war (funny, I'm not in the mood for fighting today ;)) ).
I was never in a mood for fighting, and I don't see why
there should be fighting over this.  So as to avoid that
possibility, however, this will be my last post on this
topic.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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