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The BRICS Has Overtaken the G7 in Global GDP
- 082349872349872 4y agoPPP-adjusted GDP (note that CN had already passed the US in PPP terms a while ago)
- eightysixfour 4y agoWhile it would not be surprising if China had pass the US due to sheer population size differences alone, there is data that makes it a valid question as to whether that has actually happened or not. On an annual basis, “non-free” countries seem to overstate GDP growth, which has a compounding effect over the long-run, resulting in large gaps between stated and actual GDP. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-...
- xtian 4y agoThis conspiracy theory would also have to account for what China is doing with all of the energy it's consuming (and how it's paying for this energy) if it's not manifesting as GDP. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=c... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-aramco-s-deal-will-cement-china-s-oil-demand-and-push-its-peak-higher https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoBuilding empty cities and tearing them back down isn't productive.
- xtian 4y agoHow would that activity allow one to purchase ever greater quantities of energy imports?
- shukantpal 4y agoYou still need energy to build cities even if no one lives there.
- xtian 4y agoAnd how does unproductive activity enable one to purchase that energy on the global market?
- mrguyorama 4y agoAre you saying you aren't aware of china's current economic woes and partial bust of real estate market?
- xtian 4y agoI'm aware that China's economic collapse has been continuously predicted for the last 30 years, but they nevertheless continue to produce more and more real commodities and infrastructure. Of course that doesn't hold a candle to our services-rent-IP-speculation economy here in the US.
- mrguyorama 4y agoDo you deny that China recently had a downturn in the real estate market?
- dirtyid 4y agoSure, central gov _chose_ to cracked on on the sector, but the denial is that will lead to doomer level of collapse portrayed in western media. Here's a recent primer on PRC land finance and why market remains resilient / impact on gov finance overblow. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-s-mysteriously-resilient-real-estate-prices-new-economy-saturday?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-... The real denial is western analysts with little understanding of why real estate crack down won't lead to PRC collapse. At end of the day, realestate is about as wasteful as US extravagant health care spending in % terms. Inefficient sure, but not end of the world in terms of misallocation. Even less so when ~100m surplus/vacant housing units still not enough for 200m that needs to be rehomed to bring urbanization from 65% to 80% in next 20 years.
- potatototoo99 4y agoLooking at the chart it shows every single "partly free" and "not free" country as overstating the GDP, no exception. A much better explanation is just that measuring GDP by night light is plain dumb.
- eightysixfour 4y agoDid you read the article, or maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Or did it not confirm some existing beliefs so you returned immediately and said “this is dumb” and walked away from it?
- dirtyid 4y ago> maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Martinez 2017 study has been loled to death by night time data analysts familar with the dataset and its limits. It's rudimentry methods only useful to generate clickbait headlines - it's actually that dumb. Every few years he "updates" study with new weak data but not better methods to be republished. I think latest is 3rd revision. For reference, much more sophisticated light study by NBER (by multiple FED economists on one country vs assistant prof on entire world) conducted same year concluded PRC growth was higher than PRC reported GDP, by ~10%. In line with several studies (like CSIS broken abacus) that use much more rigorous methods. But Martinez's democracy vs authoritarian narrative gets republished every few years because the alternate explanation is stupid studies that confirm western biases gets more clicks. Again, studies using better data/methods that tried to calc PRC GDP and conclude it's been underreported bt 10-20% as of 2010s data. Which makes sense because PRC incentivized to over report population and under report gdp to stay under high income per capita to stretch development perks reserved for developing countries. That's without going into PRC's conservative GDP estimation methods (relative to developed economies) that underestimate imputed vlaues from rent to consumption that would tag on another 10-20%. This has been pattern since the beginning for PRC global integration, i.e. in 80s PRC and IMF used different surveys to negotiate per capita values to base future gdp calcs, IMF wanted $250 vs PRC wanted $150 and settled somewhere under %200. The TLDR is PRC would rather appear poorer than she is on paper.
- peppermint_gum 4y agoI'll be frank, every article that presents BRICS as a real thing is propaganda. It isn't a coincidence that we're seeing a lot more of them since Russia invaded Ukraine. India and China are enemies, they keep having border skirmishes. South Africa is a failed state and it has negligible influence on the world stage. Brazil is one of the reasons why the term "middle-income trap" was devised. BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. Russia has received zero meaningful assistance from them during the war in Ukraine. It's entirely possible that in the future a real anti-western bloc will emerge. But it isn't BRICS.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago>BRICS members don't even vote in each other's favor in the UN. The United States is frequently at odds with its G7 partners when it comes to UN votes, especially those involving the Middle East. Does that mean the G7 is fake?
- favorited 4y agoBecause it's just a thing that a British economist predicted 2 decades ago. It has no basis in reality.
- seanhunter 4y agoYes. Jim O'Neil (the economist in question) grouped them together in a piece of economic research for Goldman Sachs as examples of fast-growing developing economies that he believed would overtake the G7 in terms of GDP by 2050. [1] They weren't ever imagined as a political grouping that would work together as far as I know. [1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/build-better-brics.pdf https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/archive/archive-pdfs/b... is his original paper I believe
- sho_hn 4y agoWhat's going on in South Africa?
- 4y ago
- skywal_l 4y agoThe article in not about BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) which still has an aggregate GPD a little more than half the G7 one (at least according to a cursory google search) but about BRICS-extended which include a lot of petro-states and south-east asian countries. An interesting article but the title is clickbait.
- somenameforme 4y agoIt's only referring to BRICS. You are looking at nominal GDP, and not Purchasing Power Adjusted (PPP). If a dollar goes twice as far in China, then their nominal GDP would need to be doubled to get the "real" comparable value. That's what PPP is.
- calgarymicro 4y agoI thought it was the other way around? Nominal was supposed to be better for comparing overall economic heft among countries, while PPP is better for internal measures and comparisons in living standards (GDP PPP per capita for example)?
- throwayyy479087 4y agoYou are correct - PPP is how many Big Macs you can buy (the Big Mac Index) in a country, Nominal GDP is how many nuclear submarines you can buy
- riku_iki 4y agoMaybe oil, cars, clothes, materials and electronics are better examples compared to submarines.
- zvmaz 4y agoMy country wants to join the BRICS, but every single person wants to flee the country, preferably to the West. It's our "American dream".
- scythe 4y agoBRICS is an acronym. You can't join it. There is an associated trade entity, which ironically was created in response to the acronym.
- zvmaz 4y agoSee : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/brics-debates-expansion-as-iran-saudi-arabia-seek-entry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/brics-deb...
- arroz 4y agoYou are correct but you can join it South Africa wasn’t a part of it initially Argentina wants to join it I think But honestly, there isn’t much value in joining it. BRICS is basically china, take china out and it is a minuscule thing. And there isn’t even much cooperation between BRICS countries, it’s just a bloc to make china look bigger than it actually is
- marcosdumay 4y agoWell, I believe that's a requirement.
- selimthegrim 4y agoIs Algeria running out of water?
- arroz 4y agoBRICS is not a thing, they are different countries with different interests, not allies
- albertopv 4y agoSo sad that so many people do not despise autocratic governments for their countries.
- alienicecream 4y ago[flagged]