That’s why comparing things at the nation-state level makes sense; despite the BEA’s best efforts, it’s the smallest unit for which we have estimates that are worth the electrons they’re posted with.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2007/01/countries_gdp_a.html

“Er, are we supposed to draw any kind of lessons from the fact that relatively undeveloped countries have higher growth rates than developed countries? OF COURSE they do. And 10 year olds grow faster than 40 year olds. Why is this supposed to be surprising or interesting?”

“Economies grow fastest when they SUCK.”

Members of a class C can be meaningfully compared based on class-common criteria.
Body X identifies group A as a member of class C.
Body X identifies group B as a member of class C.

Ergo, A and B can be compared on class-common criteria.

Such a common fallacy, though – appears in status evaluation, too..

Person A judges person B’s status based on person A’s status criteria.
Person A assumes that personal status criteria, or personal perception of ‘absolute’ criteria (so, 50s high school stereotypes).

Fallacy is that person A appeals to own authority, or to perceived zeitgeist authority.

That sounds more like a faith-based affirmation than an argument based on facts.

China’s economy doesn’t “suck,” these days.

They are exporting products like cars and electronics now…

…and without constant loans from China, America’s economy would collapse.

And yet it grew at a 5% annual rate in the first quarter. Funny that you don’t mention the overall annual rate, merely the one quarter.

The only time we came close was when FDR was running America.

When, of course, the debt to GDP ratio was MUCH higher than it is even now. I thought you were concerned about debt?

Economies grow fastest when they SUCK.

Imagine that Alice makes $50 an hour and Bob makes $5 an hour. At the end of the year, they both get a $5 an hour raise. Alice’s growth rate is 10%. Bob’s is 100%.

So why doesn’t Alice want to switch places with Bob?

America’s economy has never grown as fast as China’s is growing now.

The only time we came close was when FDR was running America.

Maybe an actual industrial policy for America is the way to go?

I used historical sales figures for the S-Class of around 50,000 a year worldwide.

My Chinese sales figures are for the first quarter of this year.

Your American sales figures are for last month.

Which numbers to use for comparison?

It would seem we would need last month’s S-Class sales in China…

I find monkyboy’s logic interesting: when he thinks that the Chinese consume more expensive cars than do Americans, he cites this as evidence that the Chinese are pulling ahead; but when it’s pointed out that the US consumes expensive cars at at least three times the rate of China, then *that* indicates that the US is on the skids.

But that would mean that no other S-Class cars are sold anywhere else in the world…(Mercedes makes about 50,000 of them a year).

And that doesn’t mean the S-Classes were sold to people who could actually afford them in America.

Americans and their government have been spending more than they earn recently.

Chinese workers save about 35% percent of their income.

That’s why China can afford to give America billions of dollars a year in welfare payments so we stay afloat.