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SilentObserver

Junior Member
Registered Member
The debate over whether to use nominal GDP or purchasing power parity (PPP) to compare China and US is dependent on the context of the comparison. Both metrics offer valuable insights but serve distinct purposes.

Nominal GDP is valued at current exchange rates. USD remains the dominant currency for international trade and foreign reserves. In this context, nominal GDP reflects a country's ability to engage in USD denominated transactions, like global trade and its influence within that system. This affects China's ability to purchase oil, leading edge semiconductors, machine tools and making foreign investments. A lower exchange rate benefits China's ability to export to support industrial upgrading at the expense of lower ability to import, so it's a matter of balancing these 2 needs. It's also a more volatile metric due to exchange rates which might mislead about a country's actual productive capabilities. In the context of the global USD denominated trade system, US remains dominant.

PPP attempts to account for differences in price levels between countries. A poor nation is often not as poor in lifestyle as its nominal GDP may suggest as it's domestic services and products are priced much cheaper than in international markets. That being said not all PPP are the same as each nation's domestic industrial ability varies. For example if we use PPP GDP as a proxy for national power it would appear the ratio between China and India is 2.3 instead of 4.6 in nominal terms. Yes, average Indian lifestyle isn't as bad as it's nominal may suggest as they have access to cheaper food, shelter, education, other domestic products and services but this only reflects what they can produce domestically. If we want to compare ability to produce modern weapons in a war economy, the difference between the two countries might actually be even larger than what nominal GDP suggests, in favor of China. The reason is the composition of that GDP. Chinese economy's composition is heavy in manufacturing with a comprehensive and vertically integrated supply chain in mid-end technologies striving to do the same at the leading edge. In many areas it has about half of the world's productive capabilities, with weakness in a few high end industries. PPP is a good proxy of power based on what a country can produce domestically.
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The Western mainstream media's coverage of the Ukraine war is an example misapplication of using nominal GDP to gage Russia's ability to wage war. While it's somewhat true Russian influence in the global marketplace is weakened and at the level of
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, it doesn't reflect their ability to wage war. Russia has a vertically integrated and mature arms industry, producing at prices much cheaper than at international prices. They also have control over the raw material inputs.
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than US and Europe combined (NATO). This is counter to what one might conclude if we just look at nominal GDP or even PPP, as it doesn't consider composition.

In a war economy, it matters what you can produce and how much of it you can produce. Money (nominal GDP) is only meaningful if you have access to the production, else it's meaningless. After the Cold War, the US gained access to the defense productive capabilities of most of the world's major advanced industrial nations so it's strength in nominal GDP directly translates into access to war time capabilities, even if it lacks the industries itself. In the example of India, it's sizable PPP isn't reflective of its war economy capabilities due to it's weakness in domestic industries, having to rely on imports which is affected by exchange rates. Due to economic composition, most nations don't have the ability to even effectively transition to a war economy by itself.
 

proelite

Junior Member
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India is one of the top countries that produce the most engineers every year in the world. In such a situation, the Government of India has also made an amazing plan regarding AI. This will not only make India the king of the AI world, but it will give India a chance to go beyond China and America to be kidnapped in this sector.

???
 

tygyg1111

Captain
Registered Member
Well, if USAID is their motivation, then its gonna come back online when Trump is gone, or when he changes his mind. And then its business as usual. Still, the BBC's main funding comes from the British government, so I doubt that USAID has much to do with this.

The BBC knows that their decade long anti-China campaign is running out of steam. Since positive China stories are trending very well these days, the BBC is more than likely, trying to appeal to the "China Good" crowd, hoping to influence them in the future.
schroedinger's BBC
 

Serb

Junior Member
Registered Member
The debate over whether to use nominal GDP or purchasing power parity (PPP) to compare China and US is dependent on the context of the comparison. Both metrics offer valuable insights but serve distinct purposes.

Nominal GDP is valued at current exchange rates. USD remains the dominant currency for international trade and foreign reserves. In this context, nominal GDP reflects a country's ability to engage in USD denominated transactions, like global trade and its influence within that system. This affects China's ability to purchase oil, leading edge semiconductors, machine tools and making foreign investments. A lower exchange rate benefits China's ability to export to support industrial upgrading at the expense of lower ability to import, so it's a matter of balancing these 2 needs. It's also a more volatile metric due to exchange rates which might mislead about a country's actual productive capabilities. In the context of the global USD denominated trade system, US remains dominant.

PPP attempts to account for differences in price levels between countries. A poor nation is often not as poor in lifestyle as its nominal GDP may suggest as it's domestic services and products are priced much cheaper than in international markets. That being said not all PPP are the same as each nation's domestic industrial ability varies. For example if we use PPP GDP as a proxy for national power it would appear the ratio between China and India is 2.3 instead of 4.6 in nominal terms. Yes, average Indian lifestyle isn't as bad as it's nominal may suggest as they have access to cheaper food, shelter, education, other domestic products and services but this only reflects what they can produce domestically. If we want to compare ability to produce modern weapons in a war economy, the difference between the two countries might actually be even larger than what nominal GDP suggests, in favor of China. The reason is the composition of that GDP. Chinese economy's composition is heavy in manufacturing with a comprehensive and vertically integrated supply chain in mid-end technologies striving to do the same at the leading edge. In many areas it has about half of the world's productive capabilities, with weakness in a few high end industries. PPP is a good proxy of power based on what a country can produce domestically.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


The Western mainstream media's coverage of the Ukraine war is an example misapplication of using nominal GDP to gage Russia's ability to wage war. While it's somewhat true Russian influence in the global marketplace is weakened and at the level of
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, it doesn't reflect their ability to wage war. Russia has a vertically integrated and mature arms industry, producing at prices much cheaper than at international prices. They also have control over the raw material inputs.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
than US and Europe combined (NATO). This is counter to what one might conclude if we just look at nominal GDP or even PPP, as it doesn't consider composition.

In a war economy, it matters what you can produce and how much of it you can produce. Money (nominal GDP) is only meaningful if you have access to the production, else it's meaningless. After the Cold War, the US gained access to the defense productive capabilities of most of the world's major advanced industrial nations so it's strength in nominal GDP directly translates into access to war time capabilities, even if it lacks the industries itself. In the example of India, it's sizable PPP isn't reflective of its war economy capabilities due to it's weakness in domestic industries, having to rely on imports which is affected by exchange rates. Due to economic composition, most nations don't have the ability to even effectively transition to a war economy by itself.

90% is correct, but one major mistake and one major disclaimer.

After the Cold War, the US gained access to the defense productive capabilities of most of the world's major advanced industrial nations so it's strength in nominal GDP directly translates into access to war time capabilities, even if it lacks the industries itself.

This is 100% wrong on many levels: 1. Most of those nations have also deindustrialized in the last few decades considerably, not as the US perhaps, but they are getting there. 2. Two of the most still actually industrially productive of them are right at China's doorsteps and 10000km away from the US. Their industries would be obliterated at the moment they decided to help the US use them in a war economy against China in a short period. 3. Countries in the EU already had governments being changed every few months, with constant civil unrest and 20-30% support rates. I assign the possibility of them contributing to the US war economy in any meaningful way against China maybe some single digit %. 5. You yourself said that Russia outproduced the entire NATO multiple times so it didn't even matter if the US got them to commit somehow in the Ukraine - it still wasn't enough to translate into power that it presents.


Now the disclaimer: No one ever said that nominal GDP is not useful, it is just that it maybe should be looked at 10-20% when painting a picture of the economic power of great powers or superpowers. Not the 80% of the picture that westoid retarded media and dumbfuck redditors present as such. But I guess that it's true if you are a smaller-sized country that needs to import the majority of stuff then it may climb to 50% of usefulness in the basket of economic data you should look at when evaluating the economic significance of a specific smaller-sized country.
 

SDFlurker

New Member
Registered Member
Does anyone have the link to the twitter post about the experiences of a chinese owner running a steel(?) plant in the US? It talked about how us unions are just a grift; changing some machine part needed the permission of the union and required a month, but when their own workers fixed it in a few hours they all got labelled as scabs.

Tried the search but couldn't find anything.
 
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