With four times as many people as the US, isn't passing the trade per person a more notable milestone? (If you have to define one).
I'm a bit leery of announcements like this since it's really hard to compare economies to each other (like comparing apples to oranges), but as a US citizen, I can tell you that I'm much more concerned about the state of our political system than our economy.
With three times as many people as the US, isn't passing the trade per person a more notable milestone?
That's certainly notable, but not interchangeable with this one. The total size of your economy reflects certain opportunities for scale, regardless of your population and/or productivity.
If we think about corporations, when you have certain purchasing power, you can extract certain concessions from your vendors regardless of how many employees you have. When you manufacture and ship a certain number of products, you can profitably invest in infrastructure, again regardless of the number of employees you have.
I feel that the same argument extends to trade on the scale of countries. Which does not devalue the milestone you describe, just that they have different consequences.
I won't take that bait, but I will say that wasteful or not, the US can lean more heavily on its trading partners for concessions, just as whether wasteful or not, giants like WalMart can lean on their trading partners.
Size is might, even if it's blundering, wasteful, and inefficient. (Although I am not saying the US is any of those things).
On the other end of the spectrum Iceland is fascinating, because by their independence a relatively small group of people has much power. (Iceland is also an example of corruption in a small nation)
I didn't know that Iceland was considered to have corruption in any meaningful quantity!
I faintly recall a study (by an Icelandic economist, if memory serves) which showed that Iceland had one of the lowest "corruption ratings" in the entire world! Perhaps I or the study are mistaken. Wouldn't be the first time.
Hmmm. Just read over the Icesave Scandal wiki. Doesn't looks os much like corruption as it does the Icelandic government trying to mitigate/avoid the large deposit insurance payments they'd otherwise be required to pay.
Normally most people consider corruption to be some kind of private-public intermingling. But this was all about the public side trying to protect itself (I think?).
Former PM Geir Haarde was on trial for his involvement. The powerful pretty much went in lockstep, with the smoking hot icelandic economy after a growing banking sector, it looked like every icelander benefitted, being able to take loans and buying multiple cars. With the "success", the people in charge let themselves be instruments of a run away modern high-risk banking sector, not their doing their job as regulators.
I agree with your overall point but I think your corporation analogy is slightly flawed. To my mind, the appropriate analogy with a corporation is a comparison of citizens to customers rather than employees. That is, the original commenter would like to see a number more like ARPU. Something like Average Trade Per Capita (ATPC)?
"With three times as many people as the US, isn't passing the trade per person a more notable milestone?"
Not necessarily -- they are both important.
Consider how much impact the decisions of one central government in China have, now that they are the largest trading nation. You couldn't say the same thing about a small nation with high per-capita trade.
No, that's what people tell themselves so they feel better about second place. In fact, it's both a little infuriating and embarrassing.
America didn't/doesn't have to fall to second place but we kind of did it to ourselves. We're going to be #2 in a lot of things, so let's get over it now.
I'm a bit leery of announcements like this since it's really hard to compare economies to each other (like comparing apples to oranges), but as a US citizen, I can tell you that I'm much more concerned about the state of our political system than our economy.