I went on one of those circuitous hypertext voyages yesterday when reading news online about the G-8 summit in Japan. I had several questions. What percentage of world output is accounted for by those countries (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia)? How many countries have larger economies but aren?t included? How does Russia’s economy compare to European nations not included, such as Spain?
Ultimately, I found my way to a collection of data on gross domestic product for each country in the world, adjusted for purchasing price parities. Perhaps you’ll find this breakdown of world output as interesting as I did:
?21 percent – The United States
? 7 percent – The rest of the Anglosphere (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
?19 percent – The Rest of the European Union
?21 percent – The East Asia powerhouses (China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan)
? 8 percent – Latin America (esp. Brazil, 3%, and Mexico, 2%)
? 6 percent – India and South Asia
? 4 percent – Russia and its closely related neighbors
? 4 percent – Indonesia and Southeast Asia
? 4 percent – OPEC countries (there are 12)
? 2 percent – Non-OPEC Arab world
? 2 percent – Non-OPEC Sub-Saharan Africa
? 2 percent – Turkic countries, border states, all others
Why do I employ the term ?tragedy?? Just think about all the wasted potential and suffering represented by those tiny output numbers for large swaths of humanity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
