"John Knight" <johnknight at usa.com> wrote:
>So tell us, parsetree, do you think we should believe the affirmative action
>hirees at the CIA who pad their figures with "purchasing power parity", or
>would you prefer ACCURATE data from independent, industry sources which use
>REAL data?
You mean the independent, international, industry source known as the
"World Bank", which is the group that comes up with PPP ratios, as per
the footnote in the asiaweek.com URL you cite below?
>If you want to know how misleading "purchasing power parity" really is, take
>a look at Asia Week Magazine's "Bottom Line" at
>http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0818/bottomline.html>>To be specific, Japan has a higher GDP per capita than the US, but the CIA
>and other feminized American sources use ppp to penalize Japan to reduce it
>from $34,715 to $23,480, based on the most senseless excuses, like how long
>students are in school, and a whole bunch of irrelevant tricks.
It "penalizes" Japan because purchasing power is MUCH lower in Japan
for the same amount of money. The average house in Japan is tiny
compared to a house in the US. To compare purchasing power, you need
to determine the price for a comparable sized house. Likewise for
food, clothing and whatever - ALL are more expensive in Japan.
>The CIA doesn't report ANY data correctly, as they always use this ppp and
>other "tricks" [read: LIES] in their reports.
The CIA has nothing to do with it.
http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/ppp.htmlhttp://www.worldbank.org/data/icp/
gives you access to details on how PPP is determined
http://www.worldbank.org/data/icp/pppdata.htm
gives the latest data
http://www.worldbank.org/data/ppp/sld006.htm
specifically addresses the question of Japan.
>Germany is penalized $3,000 for WHAT? Their cost of living certainly isn't higher,
Yes it is.
>The countries with the highest per capita incomes, like Kuwait and Qatar,
>aren't even on these lists. Why not?
Probably because they are not members of the World Bank and/or their
economies are so small that the World bank doesn't have a good
estimate for GNP.
However, one smaller country, Luxembourg, does have a higher PPP per
capita GNP than the US.
lojbab
