4 ms·

> He wants you to think he's comparing the last 100 years. In reality he's comparing two different time periods because U.S. acceleration ruins the wow factor.

by r0h1n 12y ago

> He wants you to think he's comparing the last 100 years. In reality he's comparing two different time periods because U.S. acceleration ruins the wow factor. That's an amazingly pedantic and petulant response to what appeared like a perfectly valid comparison. The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's, which means at least 70 of the 100 years in the 20th century was when the US was the world's largest economy and growing. What's wrong in comparing that to just 3 years of China's growth, a country which is still a smaller economy than the US mind you? That's still wow factor enough for a lot of people, especially non-Americans I guess. > He wants you to think Chinese consumers have a lot of buying power. They don't. They just happen to like those specific brands. I'm surprised you think China isn't a major luxury market. Across product categories from handbags to watches to cars, China is absolutely the #1 focus market for most brands. In fact measured by nationality, the Chinese are the world's largest luxury consumers and also the fastest growing. [1] [1] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21579015-life-getting-harder-purveyors-luxury-china-growth-prospects-are-still http://www.economist.com/news/business/21579015-life-getting...

hkmurakami 12y ago
Proportion of disposable income spent on luxury brands such as these would be a good metric to look at in dismissing or accepting his claims. FWIW, in Japan (in the metropolitan areas at least), young professional women living with their parents and making $1,500/mo often own LV bags.
adamtj 12y ago
It's not pedantic or petulant. The infographic is misleading, though not dramatically so. It looks suspicious to compare the US until the year 2000 and China only starting in 2011. There's a gap of a decade. If you assume that US use is likely increasing (a decent assumption), then the statistic could be misleading. It turns out that the US has used about a gigaton in just the last decade. That's a bit more than twice as fast as its average during the 20th century. During the past 3 years, China used cement about 29 times faster than the US. If you aren't careful, you might think the infographic suggests that number is 48x. http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-cement-in-the-us/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-cem... China has a lot of people and a lot of catching up to do. Even the misleading number isn't that surprising to me. It turns out concrete lasts a while, and US usage has been spread over a century. In the long run, the integral matters more than today's derivative.
- vacri 12y ago
  Gates' point is that concrete usage is accelerating, not that China was funkier than the US. It's hardly 'suspicious', given that context.
jsemrau 12y ago
>The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's, Also two world wars which left most of Europe in shambles. And yes, I am aware that Japan was in China at the time.
e12e 12y ago
>> He wants you to think he's comparing the last 100 years. In reality he's comparing two different time periods because U.S. acceleration ruins the wow factor. > That's an amazingly pedantic and petulant response to what appeared like a perfectly valid comparison. The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's, which means at least 70 of the 100 years in the 20th century was when the US was the world's largest economy and growing According to [1], in 1900 the US had a population of ~76M, China ~496M. And according to [2] the US reached 200M in 1967, 300 2006. In In 2012 China is estimated to have a population of ~1351M, the US: ~318M in 2014. So lets say the numbers are for 200M people * 100 ~ 20000 "M person years" for the US, and 1300M * 3 ~ 3900 "M person years" for China. So that's 6.6/3.9 "megatons/M person-years" ~ 1.7 for China and 4.5/20 "megatons/M person-years" ~ 0.225 for the US. Now I'm not sure how the original article uses the sources[3], but being conservative, it lists production numbers for US cement in 1997 and 2001 as 75 mega ton and 85 mt respectively. Now, if we take 80 * 3 * 33 we get 7.4 gt, rather more than the 4.5 gt number -- so it would appear most of the US cement was produced in later years, and so multiplying by 100 years might not be correct (and 200 M might be too low wrt population). All in all, I'd say they're interesting numbers, but rather meaningless without more data. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio... [2] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-17-population_x.htm?csp=34 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-17-popula... [3] http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/ http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/
daniel-cussen 12y ago
>The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's I believe it was 1890 or 1891, when it took over from England.
- Tycho 12y ago
  Britain

by r0h1n 12y ago

hkmurakami 12y ago

Proportion of disposable income spent on luxury brands such as these would be a good metric to look at in dismissing or accepting his claims. FWIW, in Japan (in the metropolitan areas at least), young professional women living with their parents and making $1,500/mo often own LV bags.

adamtj 12y ago

It's not pedantic or petulant. The infographic is misleading, though not dramatically so. It looks suspicious to compare the US until the year 2000 and China only starting in 2011. There's a gap of a decade. If you assume that US use is likely increasing (a decent assumption), then the statistic could be misleading. It turns out that the US has used about a gigaton in just the last decade. That's a bit more than twice as fast as its average during the 20th century. During the past 3 years, China used cement about 29 times faster than the US. If you aren't careful, you might think the infographic suggests that number is 48x. http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-cement-in-the-us/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/273367/consumption-of-cem... China has a lot of people and a lot of catching up to do. Even the misleading number isn't that surprising to me. It turns out concrete lasts a while, and US usage has been spread over a century. In the long run, the integral matters more than today's derivative.

vacri 12y ago
Gates' point is that concrete usage is accelerating, not that China was funkier than the US. It's hardly 'suspicious', given that context.

jsemrau 12y ago

>The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's, Also two world wars which left most of Europe in shambles. And yes, I am aware that Japan was in China at the time.

e12e 12y ago

>> He wants you to think he's comparing the last 100 years. In reality he's comparing two different time periods because U.S. acceleration ruins the wow factor. > That's an amazingly pedantic and petulant response to what appeared like a perfectly valid comparison. The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's, which means at least 70 of the 100 years in the 20th century was when the US was the world's largest economy and growing According to [1], in 1900 the US had a population of ~76M, China ~496M. And according to [2] the US reached 200M in 1967, 300 2006. In In 2012 China is estimated to have a population of ~1351M, the US: ~318M in 2014. So lets say the numbers are for 200M people * 100 ~ 20000 "M person years" for the US, and 1300M * 3 ~ 3900 "M person years" for China. So that's 6.6/3.9 "megatons/M person-years" ~ 1.7 for China and 4.5/20 "megatons/M person-years" ~ 0.225 for the US. Now I'm not sure how the original article uses the sources[3], but being conservative, it lists production numbers for US cement in 1997 and 2001 as 75 mega ton and 85 mt respectively. Now, if we take 80 * 3 * 33 we get 7.4 gt, rather more than the 4.5 gt number -- so it would appear most of the US cement was produced in later years, and so multiplying by 100 years might not be correct (and 200 M might be too low wrt population). All in all, I'd say they're interesting numbers, but rather meaningless without more data. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1900 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio... [2] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-17-population_x.htm?csp=34 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-17-popula... [3] http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/ http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/

daniel-cussen 12y ago

>The US economy became the world's largest one some time in the 1920's I believe it was 1890 or 1891, when it took over from England.

Tycho 12y ago
Britain