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April 10, 2005
Economic Idiot Award II
The second in our highly prestigious Economic Idiot Awards. I’m afraid that I don’t know whether the award should actually be offered to Mark Townsend of The Observer, or to Action Aid whose report he was commenting on. As an example of pure economic illiteracy, an inability to grasp even the most basic of facts about the world, this does take some beating:
The profits of Wal-Mart,
which owns supermarket chain Asda, are, for example, bigger than the
economies of Mozambique and Ghana combined.
Interesting little fact eh?
WalMart profits for 2004....$8.9 billion.
Size of the economy of Ghana....$41.25 billion at Market Exchange Rates (MER) or $37.9 billion at the more correct Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rate.
Mozambique? $19.5 billion MER and $15.1 PPP.
Well, yes, a worthy winner I think. This week’s prize is a free subscription to www.nationmaster.com where one can learn all sorts of interesting numbers.
April 10, 2005 in Economic Idiot Award | Permalink
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Comments
Sadly enough, what he might be after is another comparison that is all too common. The comparison between a corporation's sales and the GDP of a country.
He would be right though if he compared the value added of Wal-Marts and the combined GDP och Mozambique and Ghana. Not that I see why such a comparison would be interesting in the first place.
Tim adds: Well, we know that a corporation’s sales are not the same as GDP (and if it were, WalMart would be bigger than all of sub-saharan Africa, minus S Africa itself) but the value added depends on how you define it. Is it just profits? Or does one include wages as well? That’s one question I still don’t know the answer to although I’ve asked it a few times.
Posted by: Dennis | Apr 10, 2005 12:05:16 PM
For clarity,
GDP = Consumer Spending
+ Business and Residential Investment
+ Government Spending
- Trade Deficit
I'd say the best comparison between the economic state of a country and the economic state of a country is the comparison of growth of overall country wealth with corporate profits.
Moreover, the comparison of WallMart with sub-Saharan African countries says much more about the incompetance of those countries' economic policies rather than the success of WallMart.
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian | Apr 10, 2005 9:46:07 PM
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/peo_pop_in_201
Which country is missing, or does Nationmaster know about some impending disaster in East Asia, 2014?
Posted by: Aaron | Apr 12, 2005 3:02:31 AM
