Winner
Diverse in Unity
Because they've been so consistently wrong about everything that they must be right at least once?
You know, like the credit rating agencies.
Largest Economies by 2050
- Thread starter ShahJahanII
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Because they've been so consistently wrong about everything that they must be right at least once?
You know, like the credit rating agencies.
Mise
isle of lucy
Well they made a lot of money betting against contracts they arranged for their own clients...
A fun fact about future economic predictions (which I might have mentioned before): in the early 70's, with great fanfarre, the Brazilian government released a study with their projections of how the world would like in the year 2000. It would be a tripolar world dominated by the USA, Brazil and the Soviet Union (in this order of importance). They reached this conclusion merely by extrapolating the growth rates of the previous decade. Since the military takeover in 1964, Brazil was growing at an incredible pace, over 12% per year, going from a total backwater to the 7th largest economy in the world by 1970. Of course, after the oil shocks of the 70's and the debt crisis that followed, Brazil never recovered and to this day has the lowest growth rates of all the major emerging economies (despite all the fanfarre - the one thing which remained unchanged).
The moral of the story is predictions that far in time are very hard. And the only certainty we can have is Brazil will continue to disapoint us. It was the "country of the future" in 1970, it is now and it will be 2050.
The moral of the story is predictions that far in time are very hard. And the only certainty we can have is Brazil will continue to disapoint us. It was the "country of the future" in 1970, it is now and it will be 2050.
Verbose
Deity
Akka
Moody old mage.
Yes, and your affirmations just further this opinion. But I think we've derailed this thread enough and should get back at it.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
Japan passing America in the 80s was a big concern because our GDPs were really damn close to one another for a while.
Tahuti
Writing Deity
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
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- 9,492
The 1980s "Japan-is-going-to-overtake-US-help-us-all" fad was caused by the fact no one anticipated the lost decade and the decrease in population. It was all based on trends of the 1980s that didn't hold once the next decade began.
Mise
isle of lucy
What? That's not true.
It kind of is. They were not too close, but they were close enough for people to suggest that Japan was on the verge of overtaking the US. Case in point: Paul Kennedy in his book about rise and fall of Empires. Why people still take him seriously after that is beyond me.
Ergo Sum
Prince
While I say this with the benefit of hindsight, it's pretty clear demographically that Japan is and never was capable of overtaking the US by total economic strength, especially when the latter is so much more receptive to immigration.
Also I'm kind of boggling at the last of those PWC figures, since when has the US ever had the highest GDP per capita? I'd thought that the Lichtensteins and the Luxembourgs of the world (if not France, Netherlands, Sweden, etc.) have always had larger incomes per capita. Or am I conflating GDP/capita and income/capita? Is there a worthwhile distinction?
EDIT: USA does indeed rank in top 10 of GDP per capita above every large state save Norway (if it counts), beaten out fairly handily by much smaller states (Qatar, UAE, Singapore etc.). This has always confused knowing how many poor people there are here.
Also I'm kind of boggling at the last of those PWC figures, since when has the US ever had the highest GDP per capita? I'd thought that the Lichtensteins and the Luxembourgs of the world (if not France, Netherlands, Sweden, etc.) have always had larger incomes per capita. Or am I conflating GDP/capita and income/capita? Is there a worthwhile distinction?
EDIT: USA does indeed rank in top 10 of GDP per capita above every large state save Norway (if it counts), beaten out fairly handily by much smaller states (Qatar, UAE, Singapore etc.). This has always confused knowing how many poor people there are here.
There's money in that banana stand.
Yeah, that's the benefit of averages, it makes the US look better than it actually is. Take a look at some income distribution indices like GINI for context.
Those people were ridiculous.
I agree. A lot of people say that it's easy to mock wrong predictions after they're proven wrong, but I think this one was as ridiculous in 1987 as it is in 2011.
I bet the newer editions have a different cover (at least on the lower right)!
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
Look at the numbers, and the growth of Japan in comparison to America in the same time period. Lrn2Economics.
No Mise is correct
Mise
isle of lucy
I did look at the numbers, here's a graph: http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/...dim=country:JPN:USA&ifdim=country&hl=en&dl=en
Even at its peak in 1995, the US was still 40% bigger than Japan. In the 1980s the US was never less than 70% bigger than Japan.
And look how those two lines are almost parallel, too. That means that GDP growth was pretty much teh same in both countries over that period. Japan's growth rate was never much higher in the 1980s, not until the 1990s did it outstrip the US in a significant (though ultimately meaningless) way. See here.
Even at its peak in 1995, the US was still 40% bigger than Japan. In the 1980s the US was never less than 70% bigger than Japan.
And look how those two lines are almost parallel, too. That means that GDP growth was pretty much teh same in both countries over that period. Japan's growth rate was never much higher in the 1980s, not until the 1990s did it outstrip the US in a significant (though ultimately meaningless) way. See here.
Ahovking
Cyber Nations
I agree by 2050 Australia will not be in any way a "superpower" but maybe by 2070 it will be a major power, but to be honest gave Australia 200 years then maybe it could be like the U.s in the 1880's
Mise
isle of lucy
In 200 years use of the word "Australia" will be anachronistic.
