Why do we keep comparing ourselves to OECD rather than the BRICs?

[Recursion]

Or to put it another way: you're a visitor from Mars looking at the countries as they are today.

You see one grouping, the original OECD members (imagine the US's technical membership was hidden from you). That's UK, France, Japan... what we sometimes misleading shorthand as "industrialized" countries (most have majority service economies).

You see another "group", the BRICs: Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa. All large (100 million plus), diverse countries with high inequality and large extraction and/or agriculture sectors.

Which one would you put the US in?

By most development indices (including, incidentally, gun violence) we're somewhere between to two groups. But I think by any sane measurement we are the most successfull BRIC rather than the least successful OECD.

[F4lconF16]

1. Good question.

Probably our Euro-centric worldview, not wanting to be identified with "lesser" countries such as China, India, etc. because of American Exceptionalism, general media uselessness, and other things.

Why do you believe it is a more valid comparison?

[Recursion]

2. Size, diversity, and inequality of the population

Plus it's where the other superpowers are.

[F4lconF16]

5. I don't disagree. Nt

[karynnj]

9. china, Russia and India are bigger than those

Grouped with us.

[Recursion]

10. Right. So are we (nt)

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Only in population and land area

China has a GDP higher than any country but the US, but their GDP per capita is less than a quarter that of the US and significantly less than any of the OECD countries; Russia's GDP ranks behind the UK, France, Germany and Italy despite having a much larger population; India has a lower GDP than the UK, France or Italy despite having 20 times the population.

[JDPriestly]

4. No. Following WWII, we were the country with the greatest industrial base.

We have entered into a lot of trade agreements and begun to import lots of things like textiles and steel that we used to produce.

The OP points out the reason that so many of us who are older dislike the trade agreements so much. They have made America economically dependent on other countries and have made us into a debtor nation on the international scheme of things.

It's a crying shame.

We were once the greatest nation on earth for real -- following WWII.

[pampango]

18. How did trade agreements cause our decline when we trade less than any other OECD country?

And in all those OECD countries that trade much more than the US does, their middle classes are much better off than ours. Blaming our problems on foreigners - immigration and trade - is what many republican candidates, including their current poll leader, like to do. Democrats created the modern trading system and the modern immigration system. I understand why the republican base is upset about it.

We have entered into a lot of trade agreements ...

Be thankful that a republican congress rejected Truman's submission of FDR's International Trade Organization or we would have had an even bigger trade agreement to deal with right after WWII. Of course if Truman had not approved US membership in GATT by executive order, because he thought the republican congress would not approve it, the world might be more to your liking.

We were once the greatest nation on earth for real -- following WWII.

Of course, the rest of the world was devastated from the war so it was not too hard to be "the greatest nation on earth for real". Everyone else's manufacturing had been flattened by bombing and other acts of war.

It is not hard to have a trade surplus when no one else makes anything. Of course the long-run problem with that scenario is that the flattened countries know that the only market for the industries they are rebuilding is that of the "greatest nation on earth" which has all the money and the consumer market. The economies in these countries get used to exporting to the US and understanding the US market. Our companies had no incentive to understand export markets in flattened countries with no money or consumer demand.

I don't think anyone here wants the US to be the "greatest nation on earth" in anything like a post-WWII scenario. With 5% of the world's population I think we can be satisfied with being a "good" nation on earth, in the same way that Sweden, Canada and Germany are satisfied. (Besides the slogan "Make America Great Again" is already taken. )

[JDPriestly]

3. After WWII, we were the most developed, most industrialized country.

Since that time, we entered into a lot of trade agreements, and our industrial base has been decimated -- sent to what we used to call third world countries.

We are now a country that borrows money to consume what other countries produce.

If you know the book, A Ship of Fools, I would say we are A Nation of Fools.

We should not be borrowing money to buy other nations' junk.

[Recursion]

6. And the second most was the Soviet Union

And Russia is in BRICS. So is China. I think it's pretty much where superpowers go.

[JDPriestly]

7. Germany is second in terms of exports or at least was.

Germany is a big industrial economy.

China is the top industrial economy.

The BRICS countries do not have the many years of democratic rule that the OECD countries have.

The OECD was formed in 1961 during the period after WWII when the BRIC nations were not well developed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_Economic_Co-operation_and_Development

AT that time we were a leading industrial nation. Then the Republicans and the Clinton administration sold us out. And now we have a declining industrial base.

[JDPriestly]

14. As someone else pointed out in terms of per capita income, we are in the category of OECD

nations.

[Recursion]

19. By per capita income we're in with the petro states like Qatar and UAE

We're really not comparable to any other large country in that regard.

[JDPriestly]

23. Which is why we are not one of the BRICS.

And of course, our per capita income is deceptive. Because if you live in Los Angeles or New York, you may have a what looks like a big income in a small town in Kentucky but you can barely afford a room somewhere, and if you live in Alabama, you may actually be able to get buy on the federal minimum wage.

So the per capita income number may put our country in the category of "rich country," but we still have a lot of poverty.

I worked on a homeless project for years. I notice homeless people, and they are everywhere in Los Angeles. It is very distressing.

Within a block and a half, in a busy, sort of upscale (???) shopping area, I saw four homeless people in a block and a half begging for money and jobs. Three of them were under thirty.

In my own neighborhood, there are homeless elderly people (although I think there are fewer than there were a year or so ago) and a lot of what I assume are immigrants who go to the supermarket hoping someone will give them money. I assume they are asking for money to eat.

That is why I am so troubled by the disparity in income in our country. My father was a social worker in an inner city area when I was a child. People were poor, but there was work, and we did not see so much homelessness. That was the 1950s. We saw drunks sprawled out on the street in front of my dad's church, but we did not see sober, homeless people in the numbers we see them today.

As a nation, it is shameful that we are so wealthy and yet so many have so little. Something is wrong, especially since we proclaim far and wide that we are a Christian nation.

Ha! Jesus would be throwing the moneychangers out of Wall Street and setting our economic inequities right if he were walking our streets.

[karynnj]

8. I suspect the real criteria is average wealth

Per capita wealth might be the best discriminator between the groups.

[Recursion]

11. That puts us with UAE and Qatar

I mean, by that measure we're best described as a petro-state.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Except that 'petro-state' means economy based on petroleum, not 'high wealth per capita'.

nt

[Recursion]

22. Right, but we're not "Western European" either

If you were classifying us by per capita GDP we'd end up with the petro states and Switzerland.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. You bring up service economies and agriculture sectors; the USA clearly belongs in the OECD group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition

Figures for agriculture, then industry, then services:

Japan 1.2 27.3 71.6
Germany 0.8 28.6 70.6
United Kingdom 0.7 21.4 77.8
France 1.8 18.8 79.4

United States 1.2 19.2 79.6

Brazil 5.5 27.5 67.0
Russia 4.5 36.9 58.6
India 17.2 26.4 56.4
China 10.1 46.8 43.1

(South Africa is not over 100 million people, by the way - only 53 million, so I won't use it. In terms of size of economy, Indonesia and Nigeria should be the next 2 countries grouped with the BRIC one, though a case could be made for putting Mexico, another OECD member, in with them, since their figures aren't too far away from Russia's)

In terms of per capita GDP (PPP rates)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita

the USA clearly belongs in the OECD group. Russia is the highest of BRIC, somewhere in the 40s. The USA is the highest of the large OECD countries, but the other large ones are all above all the BRIC countries.

[jtuck004]

15. "large extraction" < Does this include bank$te/donors mining people for fees? That does seem to

be a rather large, outsized, yet apparently valueless enterprise that outshines all of theirs, where they even have private property?

Otherwise how do we compare in " large extraction and/or agriculture sectors. "? Just curious.

[Recursion]

16. Ag and petro are our biggest exports still

IIRC soy, hides, corn and NG in that order

[pampango]

17. Wiki shows 'capital goods', 'industrial supplies', 'consumer goods', 'motor vehicles' as the top 4.

With 'food, feed and beverages' as #5. Where does your information come from? Wiki could be wrong on this.

Export goods:
capital goods, 33.9%
industrial supplies, 31.2%
consumer goods (except automotive), 12.3%
motor vehicles and components, 9.8%
food, feed, and beverages, 8.9%
other, 3.9%. (2014)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. No.

Material goods contribute more than two-thirds of U.S. exports ($1.579 trillion). One-third of them are capital goods ($527 billion). The largest sub-categories are commercial aircraft ($54 billion), industrial machines ($49 billion), and semiconductors ($43 billion). Three other important sub-categories are telecommunications ($40 billion), electric apparatus ($40 billion) and medical equipment ($34 billion).

Another third of goods exports is industrial supplies and equipment ($508 billion). The largest sub-categories are chemicals ($65 billion), fuel oil ($64 billion), petroleum products ($61 billion), plastic ($36 billion), and non-monetary gold ($33 billion).

Only 12% of goods exports are consumer goods ($189 billion). This includes pharmaceuticals ($48 billion), cell phones ($24 billion) and gem diamonds ($21 billion). Here's more on Consumer Spending.

Automobiles make up 10% ($152 billion) of all goods exported.

Just 9% of goods exported are foods, feeds and beverages ($136 billion).

The big three are soybeans ($23 billion), meat/poultry ($19 billion) and wheat ($11 billion). (Source: U.S. Census, Exhibit 7. Exports by End-Use Category, 2013)

Services contribute one-third of U.S. exports ($682 billion). Travel passenger services was the largest single category, at $140 billion. Next was royalties and license fees, at $130 billion. Passenger fares totaled $41 billion, while other transportation was $45 billion. Government and military contracts was $22 billion. The rest was miscellaneous private services, which includes financial services.(Source: U.S. Census, Exhibit 3, U.S. Services by Major Category -- Exports, 2013)

http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradepolicy/p/Imports-Exports-Components.htm