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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 122 -- Global GDP Growth.

Gross Domestic Product Growth In Major First World Economies, 2004-

The Commerce Department released GDP growth numbers today, indicating that 2nd quarter GDP grew at a 3.4% pace. Some of the numbers from recent years were revised slightly downward. For example, for 2004, GDP growth was revised downward from 4.4% to 4.2%. Even with the revisions, and even with our already-larger economy, economic growth in the U.S. economy still outpaced that of our European friends.

Personal income, incidentally, was revised upward for all three years.

Source:

CIA World Factbook.

Just for reference, in 2004, Singapore's economy grew at a pace of 8.1%, Hong Kong's economy grew at a pace of 7.9%, India's economy grew at a 6.2% pace, China's economy grew at a 9.1% pace, and Russia's economy grew at a 6.7% pace.

Smaller, industrializing economies typically have more room to grow than larger, industrialized economies, which makes America's GDP growth even more astounding. Some Americans (mostly Democrats) want the U.S. to become more European. Seems like a fair deal, as long as "Europe" really means "Ireland." Ireland, as noted in yesterday's Trivia Tidbit, is rapidly becoming an economic leprechaun ("tiger" and "dragon" were already taken).

Following the rainbow to the pot of gold, we can see that Ireland did not become a successful economy by accident:

Ireland doesn’t have a flat tax, but it has slashed its corporate tax rate from 50 percent to 12.5 percent. Combined with other tax cuts, this helped turn the “Sick Man of Europe” into the “Celtic Tiger.” Unemployment has dropped from 17 percent to 5 percent, and Ireland is now the second-richest nation in the European Union.

Lower, flatter taxes and an open and competitive economy-- not a comprehensive European Social Model-- lead to greater economic prosperity. It's not rocket science. We should be more like Hong Kong, Ireland, and Singapore (economically, at least), and less like Old Europe.

I'd wager that few Americans even realize that the U.S., over the past couple of years, has been experiencing such strong economic growth, compared to the rest of the industrialized world. This must change. We must take the burden of economic literacy upon ourselves, one blog at a time.

The 2006 depends on it. Unfortunately, because of some downward revisions today, the headlines may create the impression that our economy is contracting-- that we're in a recession (something a startling number of Americans believe, despite concurrent optimism about their own personal economic circumstances).

And stay tuned for more accumulating evidence supporting the assertion that, YES, AMERICA, THE ECONOMY IS ACTUALLY IN GOOD SHAPE.

Could we do better?

Obviously.

But the way to faster economic growth is not the soft socialism of the increasingly Euro-enamored Democratic Party.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Globalization.

UPDATE:
Doing the fatwa trackback thing.

Posted by Will Franklin · 29 July 2005 10:13 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at July 29, 2005 11:00 AM

Posted by: Eneils Bailey at July 30, 2005 10:33 AM

Posted by: Andrew at August 1, 2005 02:22 PM