Yet the President of the United States seems to spend a lot of time trying to make Russians happy, and zero time making Californians happy.
And the idea that you have to make 'Russia happy' because they have nukes, if fucking beyond dumb.
Russia, on the other hand, supports the President, so they deserve to be rewarded.
You forgot the /SS [Not being historical, damn autocorrect, i mean hysterical, but comments; comments, they're a beautiful thing, comments - i meant /sarcasm, sarcasm. Beautiful sarcasm, they had sarcasm-such a beautiful word - two hundred years ago...etc, etc.
It would be interesting to compare economies of the same scale, regardless of legal status: If you are considering the US and China, maybe you should include the whole of the EU. And if you are looking at Germany, Japan, ... It makes sense to not only include California, but also to split up other countries. I'm curious how high up Guandong or Shanghai would be for example.
The fact that the US and China show up as single countries (and not "continents"/regions) whereas the EU shows up as a bunch of "small" countries is source of a lot of inferiority complex in Europe.
On the one hand, yes, you're right, the EU is more powerful economically as a whole than as individual states. But on the other hand the individual states are a bit less unified than the US or China. So they are a bit more individual in the first place.
EU countries still have:
- their own laws and constitutions
- their own foreign policy, embassies, intelligence services, armies, etc.
- their own taxation; there actually is no EU tax (though there is some pressure to create such a thing)
- their own policies for education, healthcare, social security, taxation, trade, etc.
- their own currency in some cases (e.g. Denmark, Sweden, Poland and many other eastern European countries)
- border disputes like Cyprus, the Balkans (several former Yugoslav countries are members or aspiring to be). And though not part of it, you might count Greenland here as it is Danish with a special status.
As a trade block, the EU is pretty large. And the sphere of influence also includes former soviet states not part of the EU, Turkey, Northern Africa, etc. But it doesn't speak with one voice like the US and China tend to do. Also there is a lot of division on topics like e.g. the Ukraine war, energy, and a lot of other topics.
Surprisingly far down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first-level_administra...
California, Texas, England, New York, Guangdong, Jiangsu. Both with slightly smaller GDP than Russia, the 11th largest economy.
More interesting is the PPP table where Guangdong is close to California.
It's also the only thing that can work in Europe. Anything smaller would make Europe irrelevant on the global stage, and something much more invasive would erase Europe as we know it.
The current mood in smaller European countries is that even though many are skeptical of French and German influence, our interests align most of the time, especially now that the US has succumbed to fascism and stupidity.
NIMBYs limiting growth.
Crazy crime handling policies in SF (which are getting reverted now).
Cities outside the main centers (SFBA, LA, etc) dying.
Complete political ineptitude for things like HSR
No wonder they're losing population
They’re not. Net change went negative during the pandemic but has since rebounded. California’s population fell in only 3 of the years 2011 - 2024.
Austin is quickly building more housing though, which I am a fan of.
This won't last once the US population starts declining. We've been held afloat by immigration but even that's running out.
Japan was ahead of the curve in terms of modernity. Looking at them is almost like looking at our own future.
This is one of the reasons that nominal GDP isn't all that useful a metric.
'Running out' - cute euphemism for 'you're not welcome', and very much worser: 'deportation'.
In fact, when immigration begins drying up, the US will become much much more open to it.
JP can still be 1/3 larger than california US compels them to appreciate. I think 140 is probably a good balance for JP exports (high tech) and imports (energy, commodities/inputs).
Or Trump makes USD weaker.
