Thursday, December 24, 2009

Nov. Durable Goods Exceed Annual GDP of Chile

CENSUS BUREAU -- Shipments of manufactured durable goods in November, up three consecutive months, increased $0.5 billion or 0.3 percent to $175.9 billion.

For the entire year of 2008, the entire output (GDP) of these countries was:

Singapore: $181.9 billion

Ukraine: $179.6 billion

Chile: $169.5 billion

Philippines: $166.9 billion

Pakistan: $164.5 billion

Bottom Line: In just the single month of November (a month following a severe recession and with durable goods about 25% below their pre-recession level), the value of durable goods manufactured in the U.S. is close to or even exceeds the entire output of many countries in the world like Chile and Philippines.

12 Comments:

At 12/24/2009 2:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you for providing such a wonderfully meaningless comparison.

 
At 12/24/2009 4:13 PM, Blogger QT said...

Thank you Anon, for providing such a wonderfully meaningless commentary!

 
At 12/24/2009 4:19 PM, Blogger Craig Howard said...

Actually, Anon, you're right. It's about as meaningful as explaining that if all the dollars representing that manufacturing were laid end to end, they'd reach to the moon and back 23 times!

 
At 12/24/2009 6:11 PM, Blogger Tim Shell said...

The Pakistan comparison might be more meaningful, as their population is of the same order as ours in the US (more than half).

Chile- smaller than Florida - not so meaningful.

 
At 12/24/2009 9:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Useless comparison.

If you are going to make these comparisons, they should be made to the same base, or a comparable base.

We also exceeded the gnp of uppper ewald saxony uppon ufton.

 
At 12/24/2009 9:58 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I can sleep better tonight with all of this valuable information and comment stream.

 
At 12/25/2009 8:43 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Thank you for providing such a wonderfully meaningless comparison"...

Thanks for whining and NOT providing what YOU might consider a 'meaningful comparison'...

 
At 12/25/2009 11:56 PM, Anonymous Daedelus said...

November durable goods were below analyst expectations.

 
At 12/26/2009 6:30 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"November durable goods were below analyst expectations"...

Hmmm, who are these 'alledged' analysts and what gives them crediblity to make this call I wonder?

AP, AFP, UPI, and CNN seem to use that phrase a lot but never explain who these people are...

 
At 12/28/2009 1:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@juandos: You must have an interesting definition of "whining". I pointed out the comparison is meaningless. Unless you are going to provide some evidence that I am incorrect, I'd say your assessment that I "whining" fails.

I would also point out that I am under no obligation or moral requirement to provide a more "meaningful" interpretation of the good professor's data. It's his point, it's up to him to provide more meaningful commentary - should he see fit - in response to my comment.

You will note that the good professor does indeed provide a more meaningful comparison and commentary in a later post.

Anon -1, juandos - 0.

 
At 12/28/2009 1:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@QT - Apparently my meaningless commentary did have meaning: the good professor has provided a different commentary and gloss on his original post. Others also seem to have found my original comment meaningful, signalling agreement in their comments.

Anon - 1, QT - 0.

;-D

 
At 12/28/2009 4:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon,

For the average person, getting an idea of the massivity (a word I made up) of the US economy is difficult when you just throw out words like trillions and billions. I don't know about you, but relative comparisons like these seem to help drive this home for my caveman brain.

I do prefer the US map with country country equivalent GDP that Mark has done. So I would argue that that map is more meaningful than this comparison...maybe because the phrase "durable goods" is right in the same family of words as "trillions" and "billions." The shape of Texas with the word Brazil in it; however, is something my inner caveman really gets...

 

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