On Sun, 15 Mar 1998, Mark Jones wrote:
> The CIA world factbook (1995 figs which do not reflect recent devaluation
> of the DM, appreciation of sterling) tells the following story:
> GDP:
> Germany: purchasing power parity - $1.4522 trillion (1995 est.)
> western: purchasing power parity - $1.3318 trillion (1995 est.)
> eastern: purchasing power parity - $120.4 billion (1995 est.)
As Doug's post pointed out, the market GDP of Germany is, in per capita
terms, indeed much higher than that of the UK. The purchasing power parity
index measures consumption only, not things like production or
distribution; basically, it makes rich countries look poorer relative to
the US, whose consumption standards are deemed to be the model for the
rest of the world (never mind the dark side of the US model, things like
ecological havoc, programmed obsolescence, and a submoronic,
stupidity-inducing mass culture), and makes poor countries look richer
on paper than hegemonic foreign exchange markets dictate they are.
These cross-country comparisons are important, because they show that
people can indeed intervene in an economy and change things; Germany was
half as rich as the UK in 1960, but caught up by the late Seventies; Italy
was probably a quarter as rich as the UK in 1960, and caught up in the
early Nineties. Japan was a tenth as rich as America and caught up in 1993
or so. The economy is not destiny; the UK decline relative to other
countries didn't have to happen that way. But it did. And pretending this
never happened makes about as much sense as expecting a revolution from
the dank and dismal hybrid of Clintonite rhetoric and Majorite austerity
otherwise known as Blatcherism.
As far as this weird charge Mark keeps making, that I'm a secret agent of
the Teutonic/Nipponic Fourth Reich, I suppose I ought to be flattered.
Obviously Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, eastern France,
northern Italy, Scandinavia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan
simply don't exist. Nor do Sony, Mitsubishi, Acer, Siemens, Nokia,
Alcatel, Hyundai, Fiat, Nestle, Deutsche Bank, etc. All a product of my
fevered American imagination!
Fortunately, any day now the EU will come to its senses and adopt the
sterling as its new currency of choice. The sun never sets on dear Albion!
-- Dennis
