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Portugal's GDP PPP is about 485 billion dollars. About the same as Tennessee. Portugal received about 3 billion dollars from EU funds in 2021. About the same T

Portugal's GDP PPP is about 485 billion dollars. About the same as Tennessee. Portugal received about 3 billion dollars from EU funds in 2021. About the same Tennessee received from the US federal government in that same year. I fail to see how a nominal difference in internal organization leads to much different outcomes. edit: I got some bad data on my search, my bad, will leave my mistake up.

alephnerd 2y ago
Loans and Bonds are not serviced in purchasing power - they are serviced in exchange rate $s and €s. Portugal (and a significant portion of EU members) had an economic meltdown during the Eurozone crisis from 2008-14, and are still trying to service those loans and bonds to this day. Also, Portugal's GDP is half that of Tennessee's. In fact, Portugal has the same population size as Michigan and North Carolina, yet a GDP that is ~50% and ~33% in size respectively.
- namaria 2y ago
  PPP is used solely to compare Portugal to a US federation unit. The economy of Portugal happens in Euro and Tennessee in Dollars, and that is immaterial to this argument.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    PPP is not a useful comparison unit when nominal $-€ conversions and costs are extremely well understood.
    - namaria 2y ago
      Which US state has an economy of a size comparable to that of Portugal? Does that change when the relative value of Euro to Dollar fluctuates?
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > Which US state has an economy of a size comparable to that of Portugal Oklahoma, but Oklahoma also only has 40% of the population of Portugal. Despite being in the Western half of Europe, Portugal is economically comparable to an Eastern European country like Poland or Slovakia. The only US territory (not state - even poor Mississippi has a higher median household income and GDP per capita than much of Western Europe excluding Germany and Scandinavia) that is comparable to Portugal is Puerto Rico. In fact, the problems Puerto Rico faces today in the US mirror those that Portugal faces in the EU.
      - steveBK123 2y ago
        If you are comparing the aid an EU country gets vs the aid a US state gets.. You do not really need to do any PPP or currency conversion. Take the GDP, in local value, against the aid they receive, in local value. Then you have a percent, which you can compare between the two agnostic of PPP/currency/etc.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Right, Portugal nominal GDP is 300B EUR so that 3B EUR subsidy is 1% of GDP. Tennessee nominal GDP is $420B and the last figure I found for federal aid to TN was $10B but this was 2014 data, at which point TN GDP was $350B. So ~2.5-3% of GDP in aid from the feds, quite a lot more than Portugal. Also this is simply the direct aid in TN budget that comes from Feds. Often there are other direct payments/transfers from Feds to individuals who file federal taxes while living in TN, which is not captured in that $10B number.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Yep. A major issue was the ascension of then poorer CEE states in the 1990s and 2000s. This meant the bulk of EU Development Funds which used to go to Southern European countries like Portugal and Greece ended up getting diverted to countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, etc. Unlike the CEE countries, Portugal's pre-EU era rulers (eg. Salazar, post-Revolution military junta, trade unions) did not invest in human capital to the same degree that CEE's pre-EU rulers did.
klipt 2y ago
In 2021, USA federal government spent $113.3 billion in Tennessee according to https://www.usaspending.gov/state/tennessee/2021 https://www.usaspending.gov/state/tennessee/2021 Including $72.6 billion in direct payments.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Indeed - TN budget shows individual departments like DOT getting $1B+ of federal money alone. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/finance/budget/documents/2025BudgetDocumentVol1.pdf https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/finance/budget/documents/2...
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  This misses the component of interstate distribution. Depending on how much federal taxes Tennessee paid, that 113 B could become positive or negative. It looks like in 2023, the IRS collected ~96 billion from TN https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-gross-collections-by-type-of-tax-and-state-irs-data-book-table-5 https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-gross-collectio...

alephnerd 2y ago

Loans and Bonds are not serviced in purchasing power - they are serviced in exchange rate $s and €s. Portugal (and a significant portion of EU members) had an economic meltdown during the Eurozone crisis from 2008-14, and are still trying to service those loans and bonds to this day. Also, Portugal's GDP is half that of Tennessee's. In fact, Portugal has the same population size as Michigan and North Carolina, yet a GDP that is ~50% and ~33% in size respectively.

namaria 2y ago
PPP is used solely to compare Portugal to a US federation unit. The economy of Portugal happens in Euro and Tennessee in Dollars, and that is immaterial to this argument.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  PPP is not a useful comparison unit when nominal $-€ conversions and costs are extremely well understood.
  - namaria 2y ago
    Which US state has an economy of a size comparable to that of Portugal? Does that change when the relative value of Euro to Dollar fluctuates?
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > Which US state has an economy of a size comparable to that of Portugal Oklahoma, but Oklahoma also only has 40% of the population of Portugal. Despite being in the Western half of Europe, Portugal is economically comparable to an Eastern European country like Poland or Slovakia. The only US territory (not state - even poor Mississippi has a higher median household income and GDP per capita than much of Western Europe excluding Germany and Scandinavia) that is comparable to Portugal is Puerto Rico. In fact, the problems Puerto Rico faces today in the US mirror those that Portugal faces in the EU.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      If you are comparing the aid an EU country gets vs the aid a US state gets.. You do not really need to do any PPP or currency conversion. Take the GDP, in local value, against the aid they receive, in local value. Then you have a percent, which you can compare between the two agnostic of PPP/currency/etc.
steveBK123 2y ago
Right, Portugal nominal GDP is 300B EUR so that 3B EUR subsidy is 1% of GDP. Tennessee nominal GDP is $420B and the last figure I found for federal aid to TN was $10B but this was 2014 data, at which point TN GDP was $350B. So ~2.5-3% of GDP in aid from the feds, quite a lot more than Portugal. Also this is simply the direct aid in TN budget that comes from Feds. Often there are other direct payments/transfers from Feds to individuals who file federal taxes while living in TN, which is not captured in that $10B number.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Yep. A major issue was the ascension of then poorer CEE states in the 1990s and 2000s. This meant the bulk of EU Development Funds which used to go to Southern European countries like Portugal and Greece ended up getting diverted to countries like Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, etc. Unlike the CEE countries, Portugal's pre-EU era rulers (eg. Salazar, post-Revolution military junta, trade unions) did not invest in human capital to the same degree that CEE's pre-EU rulers did.

klipt 2y ago

In 2021, USA federal government spent $113.3 billion in Tennessee according to https://www.usaspending.gov/state/tennessee/2021 https://www.usaspending.gov/state/tennessee/2021 Including $72.6 billion in direct payments.

steveBK123 2y ago
Indeed - TN budget shows individual departments like DOT getting $1B+ of federal money alone. https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/finance/budget/documents/2025BudgetDocumentVol1.pdf https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/finance/budget/documents/2...
s1artibartfast 2y ago
This misses the component of interstate distribution. Depending on how much federal taxes Tennessee paid, that 113 B could become positive or negative. It looks like in 2023, the IRS collected ~96 billion from TN https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-gross-collections-by-type-of-tax-and-state-irs-data-book-table-5 https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-gross-collectio...