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Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

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Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#91

Post by sandworm101 »

danielvf wrote: post #14

From the original article and chart (not the current linked site): > "California has a labor force of 19.3 million compared to the labor force in the UK of 33.8 million (World Bank data here). Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output last year as California! ... Further, California as a separate country would have been the 5th largest…

It's all rather arbitrary. As with every other state, California's economy is tied to lots of workers outside its boarders. It isn't a country. It isn't surrounded by water. So it is harder to capture exactly how much activity happens within California in comparison to how much happens in an island nation like the UK.

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#92

Post by toomanybeersies »

tedivm wrote: post #65
skratlo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output Look at it the other way, the UK can house & feed more people with the same economic output, therefore being more efficient at those tasks.

The UK has 1.75x the number of people than California, but has 2.19x the number of homeless people (more than 250,000 as of 2016, compared to California having 114,000 as of 2017).

I am always skeptical of comparing numbers of homeless people, as different countries have vastly different methods of measurement.

For instance, New Zealand has the highest number of homeless people per capita. But this is only because in New Zealand, you're basically counted as homeless if you don't have a rental contract or own a house. I was technically homeless for 18 months or so, despite having a roof over my head and being perfectly happy with my living situation, I certainly didn't consider myself homeless until I read an article telling me I was. I still didn't consider myself homeless after reading the article.

Unless we know how the numbers for the UK and California are calculated, there's no point in trying to compare the numbers. Where did you source your numbers from?

I did a bit of research, and while on the face value, the numbers are correct, they aren't really correct at all. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The official number of homeless in the UK is 307,000 [1]. This includes "sleeping rough, or accommodated in temporary housing, bed and breakfast rooms, or hostels". There are only about 4,800 rough sleepers in the UK [2].

In California, there are 113,000 homeless people (2017), of which 88,000 are unsheltered, i.e. sleeping rough. [3, page 25]. HUD defines homeless differently to the UK Govt too, living in a motel or a hotel (if not paid for by the government) is not considered homeless [4]. So there's a whole category of people counted as homeless in the UK, but not the USA.

There are massively more rough sleepers in California than in the UK, even counting for the fact that the UK is much colder than CA.

Anyway, my rather long winded point is that it's difficult to compare numbers between countries, because countries have different ways of counting things.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/08/one-in-every...

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[3] https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-AHAR-P...

[4] https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#93

Post by basementcat »

bane wrote: post #48
brightball wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious to find out if there is a study of California's location relative to it's GDP. How much of the GDP is based on coastline, major ports, access to imports from China/Southeast Asia that get distributed to the rest of the US, US based companies located there with manufacturing based in China and even Mexico. Geographically, it seems like it's in an ideal location to hold business HQ's with acces…

California...and the West Coast of the U.S. is an interesting place in that it's geographically divided from the rest of the country by a couple of major mountain ranges and large deserts. In addition, something like almost 50% of the state is unusable federal land (national parks, military bases, etc.) Despite this, it's one of the major agricultural producers in the world due to it's variety of climate zones and lo…

It appears that agriculture accounts for about 2% of the "gross state product".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California#Agricult...

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#94

Post by kbutler »

bane wrote: post #48
brightball wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious to find out if there is a study of California's location relative to it's GDP. How much of the GDP is based on coastline, major ports, access to imports from China/Southeast Asia that get distributed to the rest of the US, US based companies located there with manufacturing based in China and even Mexico. Geographically, it seems like it's in an ideal location to hold business HQ's with acces…

California...and the West Coast of the U.S. is an interesting place in that it's geographically divided from the rest of the country by a couple of major mountain ranges and large deserts. In addition, something like almost 50% of the state is unusable federal land (national parks, military bases, etc.) Despite this, it's one of the major agricultural producers in the world due to it's variety of climate zones and lo…

Federal land percentages by state map: http://assets3.bigthink.com/system/tinymce_assets/944/origin... Amazing how much of the West is federal land. http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/291-federal-lands-in-the-us

Federal land by state table (numbers vary between years and by counting method - Utah federal lands have increased significantly since 2004): https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state#Fede...

California map: https://nationalmap.gov/small_scale/printable/images/pdf/fed...

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#96

Post by jaytaylor »

Diederich wrote: post #89
jaytaylor wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless people don't die off seasonally due to weather in California.

Do you believe that exposure to weather is killing a statistically significant number of people in the UK?

Hard to say about the UK for sure without further research.

During college in Utah I was sad each winter to regularly read stories in the newspaper about homeless people found frozen to death in parks.

After President Jimmy Carter closed the mental institutions in the 70s, the mentally ill people were just let out of the asylums without any plan or further support from the state.

Since then, homelessness has grown into a ubiquitous and rampant problem throughout the United States.

Especially true in sunny California, and doubly so in San Francisco. SF seems to have become the Homeless Capital of the world. A sad and embarrassing state of affairs for a "leading" first world country.

To be clear, the amount homelessness in California is not due to lack of improvement efforts. The City of San Francisco alone pours a quarter of a billion dollars annually into services for the homeless. Despite such efforts, more than half of the homeless in the city remain unsheltered.

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#97

Post by pluto9 »

posterboy wrote: post #88
pluto9 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the one that's been going on since 2003, but take your pick. I don't need to have been to Iraq before that to know that a very large fraction of Iraqis live in mud houses with no air conditioning, running water, or sewer systems, and always have. The reason those things are missing is not because American troops stole your air conditioners. It's because the average Iraqi doesn't have a standard of…

> the average Iraqi doesn't have a standard of living adequate to afford [such a standard of living] Impecable logic, technically not even wrong, but ... you are saying the wars didn't cause colataral damage to a significant degree because ... you cannot live without air conditioning?

Your remark about air conditioning makes no sense at all, but I'll reply to the rest of your comment by clarifying what I mean.

GP was implying that Iraq would be nice if it weren't for American interventions. You appear to be making the same point, given your reference to collateral damage.

I'm saying that's highly unlikely considering that Iraq has always been quite poor compared to the U.S., even before any of these wars.

I see this whiny argument repeated over and over ad nauseam--"Iraq would be an oasis of civilization if only it weren't for those mean imperialist Americans coming in and breaking our toys". Utter nonsense. Iraq was a mess long before the Americans showed up.

But that's all beside the point anyway. This discussion is about relative GDPs of various countries and U.S. states, not an analysis of whose fault it is that the ones at the bottom are at the bottom.

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#98

Post by pluto9 »

usrusr wrote: post #90
pluto9 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. Not taking population size into account makes this entire comparison of QOL pointless, not just that between Iraq and Oklahoma. Considering GP is the one that initially made the comparison, I'm curious why you're making this reply to my comment and not hers.

GP wasn't specific about absolute vs relative GDP (American performance in QOL per GDPPC may not be terrible, but certainly not beyond all doubt), the Oklahoma/Iraq comparison was.

Yeah, no it wasn't. My comment compared quality of life while failing to account for per-capita GDP. So did GP. How is mine more specific about it?

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#99

Post by jandrewrogers »

mhandley wrote: post #81
tedivm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has 1.75x the number of people than California, but has 2.19x the number of homeless people (more than 250,000 as of 2016, compared to California having 114,000 as of 2017).

Despite that, UK life expectancy (81.2 years) is higher than California (80.8 years). Not that the UK scores especially highly on this measure - plenty of countries do better.

Americans have an anomalously high death rate due to injury, notably automobile accidents, that significantly drives life expectancy down. It is an adverse consequence of driving far more miles on average than people in any other country. Most Americans know someone who died in an auto accident.

An American that drives relatively few miles over their life changes their life expectancy to be one of the highest in the world. It is a high impact lifestyle choice that I made a decision to adopt many years ago in part for this very reason.

Re: Map: US States Renamed as Countries with Similar GDPs

#100

Post by toomanybeersies »

alehul wrote: post #41
curiousgal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I've been to Scandinavia and despite the countries having less GDPs, the quality of life, for the average citizen, is way higher.

As a Swede living in the United States, I can agree that the average person has a higher quality of life in Scandinavia! I don't think it's possible to have that in the States, though; the country doesn't seem meant for it. The Scandinavian model relies on many incompatible tenets that could be mentioned, including but not limited to immigration. The Swedish system is already practically collapsing from its first maj…

Australia is a nation of immigrants. About 30% of the Australian population are immigrants, and rising. Less than 50% of Australians have both parents born in Australia.

Australia still manages to have great quality of life (unless you are an Aboriginal). I'm not sure how they manage it, I haven't looked into it, but somehow they have.

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