Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[cards2468]

Seems odd that the UK's share was never any larger than that.

I guess when the UK was a great empire, it simply claimed territories to absorb resources rather than trade those resources out to the rest of the world while the far east was bringing silk, spices, etc. to the western world.

[JackofDiamonds]

Seems odd that the UK's share was never any larger than that.

I guess when the UK was a great empire, it simply claimed territories to absorb resources rather than trade those resources out to the rest of the world while the far east was bringing silk, spices, etc. to the western world.

Consumption of those resources, within the empire, would still generate GDP. I am assuming that they aren't aggregating the empire's GDP and are just using the island's.

[cards2468]

Seems odd that the UK's share was never any larger than that.

I guess when the UK was a great empire, it simply claimed territories to absorb resources rather than trade those resources out to the rest of the world while the far east was bringing silk, spices, etc. to the western world.

Consumption of those resources, within the empire, would still generate GDP. I am assuming that they aren't aggregating the empire's GDP and are just using the island's.

Ah, that makes sense, especially considering the British Empire obviously was a big part of a lot of the other nations listed at some point or another through out history. Afterall, what comes from the UK? Bespoke suits and unreliable cars?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Seems odd that the UK's share was never any larger than that.

I thought the same thing. But I guess in the 1800's, you need to combine India and maybe some of China with UK to get a sense of the GDP of the British Empire. Then it turns into 30-50% of world GDP and that sounds more correct.

Another odd thing is the time scale - its all over the map.

[longhornbaseball]

Seems odd that the UK's share was never any larger than that.

Seems small, but relative to the UK's population it is huge. It's hard to tell from the chart, but it looks like the UK had just over 10% of world GDP in 1900. They had around 2.5% of world population at that time. At our peak in 1950, we had a little less than 40% of world output and only 6% of world population.

The story the chart is from also had data on per capita GDP, which shows how monumental industrialization has been towards world economic growth. The line for the US is ridiculous. There are more charts in the link.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... 58762/#bio

Another odd thing is the time scale - its all over the map.

They only had data from year 1, 1000, 1500, 1600, etc...

[Hungary Jack]

Could we return to world economic domination if we annexed Canada, Mexico, and Slovakia?

[vinsanity]

Question; has austerity ever worked?

[IMADreamer]

Question; has austerity ever worked?

Has the world ever seen this level of debt and conditions to bring austerity into the conversation? I honestly don't know the answer to that. I really think we have to do a whole boat load of taxing and cutting to get us out of this.

[pioneer98]

Question; has austerity ever worked?

It’s an interesting question. Here in QC where I live, I get to see 2 very different states.

The Illinois side of QC has stagnated and has been slowly losing population. The Iowa side of QC has been modestly growing. People assume it is because of the difference in the size of government between the two states or the “business climate” being better in Iowa. I think there are other factors at work, but that is a different topic.

You could try to explain the difference in growth with Iowa’s smaller government. Or you could look at Iowa as having a way, way smaller economy than Illinois, and being way behind in terms of the maturity of its’ economy. When Illinois’ economy was roughly the size of Iowa’s (decades ago), its government was much, much smaller too. As the economy grows in size, I think it is a good idea to have a larger government to regulate it. I agree there can be waste in government, and I also agree that Illinois’ government has a ton of it!

To me “austerity” would be more than just getting out the waste – it would be shrinking the “real” size of government, too. I’m not sure that works, unless you want your economy to reverse in size also.

[vinsanity]

Question; has austerity ever worked?

It’s an interesting question. Here in QC where I live, I get to see 2 very different states.

That's an interesting comparison on the state-level, but in terms of economy I was hoping for more of a national level example. Since states don't control currency and much of the reason we don't see states suffering the same problems as Greece is because a strong central government can 'bail out' states at a federal level.

It just seems that as austerity measures are passed in Europe those countries slide even further.

People seem to think this is proof that Keynes was wrong, but I'd argue few have actually enacted a true keynesian model. Just the over-spending part.