2002-05-11 Jim,
I confused as to what you symbols: $G $/N mean. I have a few ideas, but none seem to fit the symbols as I would think they should be. Did you mean gigadollars per national population? The other thing is I don't think you can assume that the exports of the EU is 3 times more than the US based on that chart. There is no entry for the EU as a whole. I don't see how you can determine from the data as to how much of the exports, for any EU country listed is exported outside the EU or to another EU country. If we knew that then I'm sure we will get a more accurate picture of the export situation. I once heard that about 80 % of what is produced in the EU is sold in the EU. Can you explain further your interpretation of the data that I may be missing? John ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Frysinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2002-05-11 18:27 Subject: [USMA:20004] Re: American Strength > On Saturday, 2002 May 11 1335, M R wrote: > > http://www.economist.com/markets/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1124023 > > > > USA is still the World's # 1 exporter. > > Nearly US$ 700 billion worth of goods were exported. > > I hope most of them have only Metric units. > > > > Madan > > This is just a quick and dirty calculation, but I did two things. I added a > line for the European Union (adding Germany, France, Britain, Italy, > Netherlands, and Belgium) and I divided the resulting amounts by the figures > I have for those 1993 populations to calculate exports in terms of dollars > per citizen. Take caution regarding the figures for Hong Kong; re-exports are > a very significant portion of their exports. In other words, they act more as > transhippers than as producers. To a lesser extent, the same can be said for > Sinagpore. > > $G $/N > United States 0.728 2.84 > Germany 0.566 7.08 > Japan 0.404 3.24 > France 0.500 8.76 > Britain 0.272 4.70 > China 0.265 0.22 > Canada 0.261 9.52 > Italy 0.250 4.31 > Netherlands 0.228 14.99 > Hong Kong 0.191 32.26 > Belgium 0.180 18.12 > Mexico 0.162 1.72 > South Korea 0.151 3.44 > Taiwan 0.125 5.92 > Singapore 0.118 41.60 > EU 1.996 7.18 > > A couple of things jump out at me. First, the EU's exports are about two and > a half to three times as large as those of the US. Keep in mind that the > numbers above do not include all the countries in the EU, so their figures > are actually higher than shown above; the factor of three is probably good to > one significant figure. This *strengthens* the argument that we need to > metricate in order to improve our export picture. We're getting stomped! > > Second the US's exports in terms of dollars per citizen are less than all the > others excepting China and Mexico. What this tells me is that the monetary > value of the export market is less for Americans than for Europeans or > citizens of most the other countries shown above. This *weakens* the argument > that we need to metricate to improve our export picture; Americans won't care > as much. > > Obviously, this is a crude way to slice the pie. Many other factors come into > play. We should really look at the percentage of Gross National Product that > each country exports, for example. This further weakens the argument we might > make about improving our exports, since the US has a very large GNP. But it > does provide some food for thought. > > Disclaimer: My procedure involved enlarging the graphic on the page cited by > Mardan and measuring each of the bars (in millimeters, of course!) to > graphically read the export amounts indicated. That scale turned out to be > $G=136 mm. > > Tell folks that the EU outstrips us by a factor three in terms of the total > value of goods exported and also in terms of the value per citizen. Europeans > benefit from exports more than we do. Be careful not to talk about this in > the same conversation in which you tell them that we need to allow > metric-only labeling in our country to improve our import/export efficiency; > that could be a double-edged sword. > > Bottom line: The EU out-exports the US 3 to 1. > > Thanks for that neat link, Madan! There was a lot of meat on that bone. > > Jim > > -- > James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston > 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy > Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street > 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424 > http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644 >
