What country has the best economy right now? From what I hear, the US isn’t doing so well – or we had a super awesome economy that is taking a nosedive – and a lot of our industry (steel and autos, at least) is moving out of the domestic market and into the hands of cheaper foreign labor.
Is there an economic shift going on? Will brazil be so filthy rich someday that they’ll be buying American steel? How about Mexico, will they become millionaires and have American migrant workers?
I don’t know much about Macro Econ but I guess having a good economy means less unemployment, highger per capita income, and less government debt. Does anyone beat the US yet (or have they always)?
You could hypothesize that the best economy is one that provides its citizens with the best standard of living and is the most flexible to change. I can find some standard of living indexes but even these are pretty controversial.
There are different ways of measuring. If you list countries by GDP per person adjusted for purchasing power, I think you’ll find Switzerland or Luxemburg pretty near the top. In terms of size, the US dwarfs all others.
Despite its current problems (which are affecting the rest of the world), the US economy has consistently outperformed most others in the last 10 years. The country seems to have found a formula for technology-led wealth creation that leaves other countries far behind. The gap between the US and Europe/Japan has grown distinctly. The US attracts the best people from around the world, and the largest amount of inward investment.
There is a downside. US workers put in long hours and get less time off than in other developed economies. If you could put a dollar value to relaxing and seeing your family, the statistics might even show Europe as being better off than the US.
Based on the simplest measure of % growth in GDP, lil ol’ Australia is the best in the OECD right now, daylight second. ABC NBews online 7/3/2002
The most remarkable thing about this performance is that our biggest customer is Japan, whose economy remains in a moribund state. The growth has been a rare combination of a strong domestic currency coupled with strong exports which have been fueled by a highly competitive currency.
Somehow don’t think we’ll be the saviours of the US steel industry though.
In terms of standard of living, the best place I have ever seen is Singapore. They have fantastic healthcare, education, public transport and internal environmental policies. The government also takes part of their salary every month (20%?) and invests it for them. They can apply for these enforced savings for things like housing, education, etc.
They may not have freedom of political expression, but you can tell they’re happy because they smile all the time (or perhaps that’s because they’re scared not to).
In my opinion the best measure for an economy’s strength is gross national product per capita. In this measure the Luxembourg has the best economy with a gnp per capita of $44797. Here is a complete list http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/social/inc-eco.htm
For comparison the US gnp per capita is 32778 and Australia’s is 21319.
** puddleglum ** - thank you for confirming my hunch about Luxemb(o)urg:)
jjimm - actually, what Singapore is best at is public relations. Superficially, it looks great, as you say. Economically, it’s in deep doo-doo. Its system of central planning has left it with a large manufacturing base that isn’t viable in such a relatively high-cost place. Its factories - paid for by govt-directed public pension funds - should really be in China or somewhere. They’ve blown their people’s savings. And, as you say, it’s a police state. Their best people leave.
Is Lux’s GNP so high because it’s such a small place? If you had a larger country and ran it like Lux, would it be just as prosperous?
I’m guessing most people in Lux are at the same economic level, whereas a place as big as the US, you have such a wide scope of classes that figures get skewed a little - you have lots of starving people and lots of filthy rich peple and a whole mess of people inbetween.
What kind of economic structure does Luxemborg have? Capitalist? Socialist?
Luxemburg has a population of less than half a million, IIRC. It hosts several European Union institutions - massively wasteful bureaucracies, which must support an extensive range of restaurants and other services. It’s also a tax haven and financial services centre - ditto.
It’s basically a prosperous county that happens to have the status of a nation state. There’s no secret formula that others could emulate.
Goes back to definitions. I would argue that the US has some natural un paralled advantages. Large land area rich in natural resources, excellent farmland, educated work force, large investment in research, huge domestic market, internationally competitive, low trade barriers steel cough cough, strong financial system, magnet for foreign capital, etc. etc. This makes for a very deep economy. The average quality of life may not be as good as some countries, but the underlying economy is extremely strong. I don’t think there is another economy in the world that comes anywhere close to having such a strong fundamental base.
Our steel industry has nothing to do with our general economy. Steel used to be a big deal and then they didn’t invest in new methods and foreign competition kicked their butts. Some new mini-mills started up in the U.S. and are able to compete, but we’re still protecting the big inefficient mills.
Fact is the U.S. is not a manufacturing country anymore. The number of employees in manufacturing has held steady for years, while service industries have increased continually. When you hear that our trade deficit was X number of dollars that is measured in goods and we have been getting our butts kicked for years. However, if you throw in the trade balance in terms of services the comparison takes a reverse and we end up in the black. Nobody bothers to tell us this part of the story.
Then along comes the information economy and hopefully we are being competitive in that also.