US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

[erdogs]

No one has posted here lately, and I would still be interested in hearing others' thoughts of this map.

The USA is known by everyone to be the richest and most prosperous nation on earth, and this map spells it out quite clearly. And it's a fact we have all known since we were old enough to understand such things.

I'm still literally blown away by the implications of this map. New York's economy is equal to that of an immense country like Brazil! Michigan's economy is equal to Argentina's. California's economy is the size of the French economy, and Cal. has one-third the population of France!

Through all the faults of our economic/social system, and all the other huge problems our country and people face, we are doing SOMETHING right.

[Gusterfell]

You have now lost all your Liberal credentials by complimenting the United States. Someone needs to put you back in line!

[Chtimi]

This is true---the EU has the largest economy in the world. The US is #2. But it looks different when you consider population of the two.

(2006 economic statistics from Wikipedia)

EU GDP: US $14.5 trillion

US GDP: US $13.2 trillion

EU population: ~500 million

US population: ~300 million

The population of the EU is dramatically larger than that of the States. But the EU's economy is only ~10% larger. And Europe has plentiful resources, oil, hectars and hectars of arable land, and millions of highly educated people----same as the States. The US is certainly doing something right~~~~~

[erdogs]

Right. in one thread you defend Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh as great orators, and claim that they are honest and supported by facts. In the next you spout their propaganda point that all liberals hate America. Good to know your own partisan credentials are intact. Yet we're the ones who only believe what we're told to believe.

[monsoon]

..... Every generation learns from the mistakes of the previous one, and I'm very optimistic that will continue.....

[erdogs]

In regards to calling the other posts here "rants" that is usually up to the eye of the beholder and because of that you do not get to use those terms to describe what the other forumers do on this site. I am sure there are several that would consider your posts in the same manner and unlike people like Rush Limbaugh, we try to maintain some civil order here towards others.

[richyb83]

With so many looking at Louisiana as a "poor" state; according to this Louisiana is ranked #16 in GDP, not too shabby. And when the offshore royalties finally begin to happen as they should been, the ranking will climb even higher.

Thanks for posting this!

[NCB]

Richy, I don't know how exactly that site is formulating everything, but based off the newest GDP numbers from 2006, Louisiana is ranked #24 in the nation with a GDP of $193.1 billion. Certainly not "poor" at all, but about $50 billion seperates Louisiana from the states ranked #'s 15-17.

[richyb83]

Thanks Nate, that's very interesting, and a big difference too.

[Snowguy716]

I think it is kind of funny that Minnesota's economy is the same size as Norway, and that not only does Minnesota have a population the size of Norway, but a large percentage of our population is of Norwegian descent. Now of course we don't have the oil royalties that Norway gets, but we do refine more gasoline than any other state that does not produce oil. And we are rather fond of pickled herring and we can all tell you what a Sm

[waccamatt]

I never said that liberals hate America, but they do see the glass as half empty where I see it as half full. I have never heard a liberal say one nice thing about this country, now I have thanks to Charlotteman. My comparison in the other thread was O'Reilly vs. Rosie and nothing was disputed, just more rants.

What this map shows is how well our economic system works, even with our cultural and ethnic divisions. The biggest asset we have is the American worker. The work ethic that is instilled in our blood has built this country from the ground up. Even though we have had an evil past in some areas such as slavery and segregation, we have also had people fight to make changes. Every established nation on this planet has had these and even worse evils to overcome, but it took most of them thousands of years to do so. Thanks to the vision of the founding fathers, our system of government allowed for these changes without as much bloodshed in comparison.

Now we are today fighting against an influx of cheap labor that has devalued the workforce. We need to fix our immigration policies to make it more efficient, then secure our borders. We also need to shine a light on those already here, so they are not taken advantage of and we can protect our entire workforce.

Equality has not been achieved by all, however we are still a country in progress that has yet to reach its greatness. Every generation learns from the mistakes of the previous one, and I'm very optimistic that will continue. That's why I see the glass half full. Yes we have our problems, always have, always will, but we always seem to find a way to solve them. MLK in his time saw a vision of greatness as he realized the promise of his country, even though he didn't live to see it come to fruition. He was a patriot who also thought the glass was half full. We have a great foundation to work with.

[Charlotteman]

Plentiful resources ? France and the most of EU countries have no profitable mineral resources, neither natural gas, nor oil !

Could you be more specific ? "...doing SOMETHING right", something WHAT ?

On the forums it happens that someone refuses to face a question and talk about it, then he breaks the debate saying "after all, it's worse elsewhere".

Now we have the ideal thread to say "it's worse in Europe ! In the States the chickens jump, roasted, direct in the plate !" People risk to think, not : "that guy loves his country", rather : "it's intellectual self-indulgence" or even "he lacks self-confidence".

Everybody knows that Europe is late in comparision with the United States because of our divisions and stupid wars. We are patiently uniting Europe in order to share our skills and avoid wars. It's not relevant to compare our 500 millions with your 300 millions people as if we had had the same history and the same problems to face. The difference is represented by countries who had to suffer from the communism, now the EU's eastern countries enjoy a better economy, let's hope for them an economic success comparable with the Celtic tiger's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Tiger

As an European, I read in the map that the United States owe a great part of their prosperity to a large area, peace and freedom on the whole territory and unity.