5 ms·

For all I know, Belarus is an amazing place to live, but there are real economic factors. The GDP of Belarus is ~$47 billion ($4,989 per capita). That's about t

For all I know, Belarus is an amazing place to live, but there are real economic factors. The GDP of Belarus is ~$47 billion ($4,989 per capita). That's about the same total economic output as Albuquerque, NM or Knoxville, TN (each of which achieve their numbers with about 10 times fewer people than Belarus (meaning, of course, that the per capita GDP in those cities is also about 10x)). Americans wildly underestimate the economic power of the United States. There are dozens of "small" U.S. metros that match the productivity of Belarus. And those are the small metros. There are dozens more totally ignored "flyover dumps" -- think Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbus, etc -- with GDPs 3 or 4 or 5 times that of Belarus. And only then do you get to an "irrelevant, dying" place like Detroit, whose GDP is ~$280 billion (about 6x that of Belarus). Most of these comparisons shouldn't ever leave the gate.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
But he is talking about the quality of life, not the GDP. Things I assume are much cheaper in Belarus and he or she estimates that people's quality of life there is better. I've never been both places like they have so I will take their word for it.
- dionidium 8y ago
  > But he is talking about the quality of life, not the GDP. The suggestion that these two things aren't related is an extraordinary claim.
jakobegger 8y ago
What good is a high GDP though? It just means that you pay more for a crappier appartment.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  PPP-adjusted the cities of New York and Los Angles are still out-ranking countries like Australia, which by metrics of size, natural resources, age, and avoidance of WWII destruction should logically be on par with the United States. For whatever reason the U.S. really just has absurd amounts of economic output.
wrong_variable 8y ago
Many places in both the US / UK are overvalued relative to their economical value. Some developer in Glasgow tried selling us a parking lot - we did the math and there was no way it would generate enough income to collect on its price. We were better off directing our investment where the math worked (emerging markets, etc). The parking lot had a higher price then an entire chemical plant in Kenya that had a monopoly on supplying life saving generic drugs to 3 countries in Eastern Africa. A lot of valuation in the US / UK is based on the dollar having reverse currency status, so don't get on your high horse about the US being more 'productive'. It didn't stop the glasgow parking lot gaining it value afterwards, but as the saying goes - "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".
- dionidium 8y ago
  > so don't get on your high horse about the US being more 'productive'. I'm not on a horse of any size.
davidzweig 8y ago
"Tractor production is up 7% this year! Milk production is up 4%! We don't need your frivolous Apple gadgets!" Just joking. [In every joke there is a portion of joke..]
scottlocklin 8y ago
I hate comparisons like this; purchasing power parity GDP is much different and much more useful for comparisons than raw GDP. "National purchasing power parity income" is the old timey comparison that actually measures what you want to measure. Otherwise you're mostly just comparing how cheap the rent is in Belarus.
- davidzweig 8y ago
  Is there some number for how much value your foreign dollars buy you in different economies? GDP = $ people earn, PPP GDP = GDP * [value for money fudge factor], so maybe: [value for money fudge factor] = PPP/GDP ?
- dionidium 8y ago
  I agree with you. I grabbed a crude, available measure. But my argument stands by most ways of measuring (and the one I chose, while crude, doesn’t tell us nothing, despite what some of the commenters here suggest). It's more difficult to find PPP data for cities than it is states, but here's the latter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states... And for Belarus: https://tradingeconomics.com/belarus/gdp-per-capita-ppp https://tradingeconomics.com/belarus/gdp-per-capita-ppp You're right to notice that it's a better measure, but it still favors the spirit of my argument.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

But he is talking about the quality of life, not the GDP. Things I assume are much cheaper in Belarus and he or she estimates that people's quality of life there is better. I've never been both places like they have so I will take their word for it.

dionidium 8y ago
> But he is talking about the quality of life, not the GDP. The suggestion that these two things aren't related is an extraordinary claim.

jakobegger 8y ago

What good is a high GDP though? It just means that you pay more for a crappier appartment.

tomatotomato37 8y ago
PPP-adjusted the cities of New York and Los Angles are still out-ranking countries like Australia, which by metrics of size, natural resources, age, and avoidance of WWII destruction should logically be on par with the United States. For whatever reason the U.S. really just has absurd amounts of economic output.

wrong_variable 8y ago

Many places in both the US / UK are overvalued relative to their economical value. Some developer in Glasgow tried selling us a parking lot - we did the math and there was no way it would generate enough income to collect on its price. We were better off directing our investment where the math worked (emerging markets, etc). The parking lot had a higher price then an entire chemical plant in Kenya that had a monopoly on supplying life saving generic drugs to 3 countries in Eastern Africa. A lot of valuation in the US / UK is based on the dollar having reverse currency status, so don't get on your high horse about the US being more 'productive'. It didn't stop the glasgow parking lot gaining it value afterwards, but as the saying goes - "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".

dionidium 8y ago
> so don't get on your high horse about the US being more 'productive'. I'm not on a horse of any size.

davidzweig 8y ago

"Tractor production is up 7% this year! Milk production is up 4%! We don't need your frivolous Apple gadgets!" Just joking. [In every joke there is a portion of joke..]

scottlocklin 8y ago

I hate comparisons like this; purchasing power parity GDP is much different and much more useful for comparisons than raw GDP. "National purchasing power parity income" is the old timey comparison that actually measures what you want to measure. Otherwise you're mostly just comparing how cheap the rent is in Belarus.

davidzweig 8y ago
Is there some number for how much value your foreign dollars buy you in different economies? GDP = $ people earn, PPP GDP = GDP * [value for money fudge factor], so maybe: [value for money fudge factor] = PPP/GDP ?
dionidium 8y ago
I agree with you. I grabbed a crude, available measure. But my argument stands by most ways of measuring (and the one I chose, while crude, doesn’t tell us nothing, despite what some of the commenters here suggest). It's more difficult to find PPP data for cities than it is states, but here's the latter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states... And for Belarus: https://tradingeconomics.com/belarus/gdp-per-capita-ppp https://tradingeconomics.com/belarus/gdp-per-capita-ppp You're right to notice that it's a better measure, but it still favors the spirit of my argument.