Paul Krugman wrote a recent post, Is the Sleeping Giant Awakening about the EU. It inlcuded this chart showing the relative sizes of the economies in China, the US and Europe plus UK.
From my perspective here in the US, I see a different set of data: per capita GDP. This tells the story of a very rich US.
- China – $27,699 per capita
- UE + UK – $58,994 per capita
- US – $76,471 per capita
This just feeds my outrage over what has happened in the US by way of income and wealth inequality over the past 50 years. See my “An Update: the $79 Trillion Heist“.
The Gini coefficient (0 = perfect equality, 1 = perfect inequality) is a common measure of inequality:
|
Region |
Wealth Gini Coefficient |
|---|---|
|
United States |
0.85 – 0.88 (very high) |
|
China |
0.70 – 0.75 (high) |
|
EU + UK |
0.60 – 0.70 (moderate-high) |
Another useful metric is the percentage of total wealth held by the top 1%:
|
Region |
Top 1% Wealth Share |
|---|---|
|
United States |
35-40% |
|
China |
30-35% |
|
EU + UK |
20-25% |
For all of the talk in the US about the national debt, taxes, and inflation, the real issues revolve around how we choose to run our economy. How we divvy up the output. Where we decide to invest. We are a very rich country that has prioritized the production of billionaires instead of other possible objectives.
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