https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/the-richest-countries-in-the-world-2018-5
The rank of the United States of America: 12.
Why are Ireland (5) and Norway (7) ranked so high and the more “major” European countries like France (29) and British Kingdom (28) are ranked much lower?
LOl. Yeah the “great” US! Poverty is us for most of the country. 12th only cause the 1% are worth about what the bottom 60% combined are wroth so it looks like the US is reasonable. It isn’t for 99% of the country.
The rank is based on per capita GDP, so it is not that surprising.
The majority of the top countries, including Norway, have vast oil reserves.
I’m surprised Ireland is as high as it it is (#5). My guess is it’s because many multinational corporations have parked themselves in Dublin, an English-speaking city with full access to the EU Single Market and extremely low corporate tax rates. That also gives them an incentive to do their accounting in a way that attributes most of their profits to their Ireland operations. I’m not sure how much of that money actually makes its way into the hands of Irish citizens.
Yeah, except that’s not how the math works. As stated above its per capita GDP. So smaller population countries with resources will tend to score higher.
Actually, it states using GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita:
https://www.investopedia.com/updates/purchasing-power-parity-ppp/
For example, the following shows the difference between GDP nominal and PPP (total economy size, not per capita), where you can see that countries where costs are generally lower (e.g. China and India) have much larger GDP in PPP terms than in nominal terms.
If California were a country, what will be its rank?
I could be wrong here, I heard there are still many poor residents in California.
Whenever we eat at a fast food joint (yes, we still go to a fast food restaurant often even though our income is likely not that low) we see many old customers there. It is not like this when we were in Texas. (But maybe it is because we were in a “better” area in Texas.)
For quite a while, Ireland has been a tax haven for corporations, as @bclintonk noted. GNP tells a slightly different story.
https://www.ft.com/content/6c7a0c9a-1913-30a2-a317-24d2623e1865
@Sue22 – Isn’t the U.S. the world’s biggest crude producer?
Yes we are an oil rich nation. But it’s total divided by population. We have more people in the us than the entire list combined.
I know we like to self hate at times. But the population of the next 11 countries ranked higher than the USA combined are less than three big states. It’s like saying South Dakota is the wealthiest state. Big oil and low population.
Funny all the social democratic Scandinavian countries don’t fair as well as one would think.
Even name a country with over 70 million citizens or so many diverse citizenry on the list. Most are smaller than nyc or la.
And we would also be much wealthier if we weren’t the largest provider of foreign aid to the nation’s if the world. I’m ok with a few tiny countries being richer so we can continue to help.
I wouldn’t use this as a gauge at all. We’ve been to 49/50 states and half of Canada. All ages and socio-economic classes eat at fast food places when they want to. My FIL has is 90 years old and has a bundle saved up - far, far more than he will ever use, yet he’ll visit fast food daily letting us know exactly where coffee is 10 cents cheaper. He’ll pick that even when he likes another place better.
Many times selecting where one eats - esp if they’ve lived through the depression or had parents who did - is a mindset.
Total US foreign aid including military is less than 1% of federal budget. Much of it must be spent on US products and contractors. It isn’t just a gift, it buys strategic and economic influence. And per capita, US is very far from largest provider of aid.
One more thought to go with not being able to use Fast Food to gauge income… When we’ve been to Doha’s airport, the longest food line has always been Burger King. Doubt most folks in that line qualify as poor regardless of their country of origin. Fast food beats other options in the US airports too, but I suspect many there are Americans. In Doha I don’t think Americans were even a high minority (when we’ve been there). FWIW, it’s one of my favorite international airports so if you ever have it as a layover, thumbs up!
I doubt one can use cars or other “things” to gauge income either. There are oodles of “Millionaire Next Door” types who have $$, but few can guess it by that method.
I couldn’t tell from the article if per capita debt was worked into their richest country definitions. Does anyone know? My guess is it wasn’t and if not, that makes me wonder how results might change.
I hope you are getting to the 50th state soon @Creekland! I am sure that will be a satisfying achievement!
@Mwfan1921 The 50th is Alaska. The economic downturn and college years hit us, so we never got to it. Although TBH, our next trip was going to be Mozambique as it won the family vote over Alaska. We haven’t made it to that one yet either. College years just ended in 2018 - our income has gone back up! Neither has made the top of the list yet though. So many places to see on this planet…
Youngest lad is getting married this year and chose to go on his honeymoon in Alaska. I never realized how much not getting to #50 meant to our kids, esp since they’ve traveled to various countries across the globe.
The rest of us have threatened to follow him there buying seats right next to theirs on the plane… but we’ll be nice and refrain. 