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Exactly, your GDP PPP can be double that of the US and it does you absolutely squat if the median wage is 10 times lower. I swear I don’t remember the last tim
by dogma1138 3y ago
Exactly, your GDP PPP can be double that of the US and it does you absolutely squat if the median wage is 10 times lower.
I swear I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen this low level of topical knowledge in a post on HN as this one.
- thanksbucko 3y agoThanks for posting clarifications and disputations, seriously. I naively thought all the PPP business meant something that I’ve since learned it does not.
- HWR_14 3y agoIt's orthogonal. Nominal GDP (or income) is if you took it to the money exchange and turned it into the same global currency (say US Dollars or Euros). PPP GDP (or income) takes into account how much stuff you can buy. Whether it's better to take the median income or the per capita GDP (which is closer to the mean income) to represent the "typical" person is a different question.
- refurb 3y agoYou can see this by the top countries in GDP per capita. Countries like Ireland and Singapore have per capita GDPs that are 10-30% higher than the US, yet median wages are lower. Wikipedia even has section explaining why: Many of the leading GDP-per-capita (nominal) jurisdictions are tax havens whose economic data is artificially inflated by tax-driven corporate accounting entries.