[oblio]

LOL, of course.

If you don't believe me, compare the GDPs per capita of "the richest and most sophisticated EU countries" versus Mississippi and West Virginia.

Hint: the "sophisticated" EU countries are poorer.

Comparing ANY US state (average: $85,373) with Tajikistan ($1,271) would be a travesty.

[AnthonyMouse]

Mississippi: ~$39,000

GDP per capita, PPP[0]:

  Turkey: $41,881
  Spain: $50,472
  Slovenia: $51,407
  UK: $56,836
  Germany: $66,038 
  Denmark: $74,958 
  Norway: $82,264
  Ireland: $137,638
  Luxembourg: $143,304

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

The difference between New York (the highest US state by per capita GDP, ~$91,000) and Ireland is larger than the difference between Mississippi and a per-capita GDP of literally zero.

[oblio]

Also, I forgot, it's a disingenuous comparison if you know anything about how life, subsistence, marginal savings rate & co work, which I assume you do if we're discussing these kinds of topics.

The scale of "GDP per capita and how people are living" is roughly this:

At a "GDP of literally zero" you're DEAD.

At a GDP of 1k, you can afford a cheap bicycle.

At a GDP of 10k, you can afford small, old, beat up and unsafe cars.

At a GDP of 30k, you can afford almost all modern amenities, they'll just be smaller, older, have fewer features.

At a GDP of 80k you can do whatever the hell you want if real estate expenses aren't killing you.

So no, you can't freely compare a country at 10k with one at 80k and try to bail out the comparison with PPP.

And the difference between 1 billion and 1 billion 30k is 1 billion. Percentages matter, thresholds matter. The person having 1 billion 30k doesn't have a materially different life to the person having 1 billion. The person having 30k is reasonably well off, the person having 0 is dead. The person having 40k is also reasonably well off while the person having 10k is poor (and NOT US poor, world standards poor; which BTW, is about the global average, which makes the average person in the world poor by modern development standards).

Compare like with like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country#Comparative_...

[acje]

Pretty sure we can´t divide Mississippi by zero

[AnthonyMouse]

It's an average. You can average zero in with 140 and still have a higher average than the average of 90 and 40. And what do you expect if you don't average in the zero?

[oblio]

GDP per capita PPP can't buy you many things. It's a disingenuous comparison.

You also didn't address my Tajikistan comment, because you know you're but won't admit it.

[oblio]

*you're wrong but won't admit it