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Originally Posted by John
Is it worth it?
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It's a bit whimsical in tone, but somebody tried to answer that exact question:
http://business.time.com/2012/07/24/...are/?hpt=hp_c2
An excerpt:
Blandly labeled the Inclusive Wealth Report 2012, this impressive research project, which is super fun to explore, is the first serious attempt to measure the total wealth of the planet’s richest countries. Not income, mind you, which is what Gross Domestic Product (GDP) refers to, but rather total wealth, i.e., the comprehensive value of the physical assets (buildings + roads+ equipment + railroad tracks + etc.), human capital (population + education + skills + earning potential + life expectancy) and natural resources (land+ trees + minerals + fossil fuels). As you , the winner, by a long shot, is the United States, with an inclusive wealth figure of roughly $118 trillion (in 2000 dollars). That’s more than double the total of the next wealthiest country, Japan ($55 trillion), and almost six times the cumulative value of all the tea plus everything else in China ($20 trillion).
And another:
More to the point, and despite what you might hear during this year’s election cycle, more traditional measures of indebtedness are actually telling a positive story. Last quarter, public and private debt as a share of the national economy dropped for the first time in about three years, from 3.73 times GDP to 3.36 times GDP. We have a long way to go, but as a country we have actually been “de-leveraging”—paying down debt—which is one of the reasons the economy has been sputtering. It’s an ugly and painful process, but it’s necessary and working.
It’s also a lot better than selling Rhode Island to the highest bidder.