Savings rates are an arbitrary comparison (IMHO) because Americans and to a lesser extent, the British, rely heavily on financial services and investment. The common analogy is that 10% of the population hold 60% of the wealth; therefore are we to assume that 60% of the wealth is not investing heavily? I find it hard to believe the wealthy (the majority of income earners) spend more on consumption, as a % of their disposable income, than the typical family of 4.
Interesting.. But considering UK growth based on debts and "spent" rather than saved savings, doesn't this account for a gap in GDP numbers, that otherwise would not be there?
Personally I believe in a "save when times are good, spend when times are bad", which equals in todays reality that the UK people and the US people have nothing to spend, while people in many European countries have a fortune to spend, so the UK and the US seems not to be following that type of economic policy, because times have been good and they have spend, and now times are bad and they have nothing to spend.
The US and the UK have a bigger stock market capitalization however, but do you not consider that a great loss considered where we are, compared to more stable "traditional ways" of saving?
"Poor" is a very loose term when describing a country with a high gdp/capita. Believe it or not, Norway has the sixth highest rate of external debt per capita in the world, with the UK coming in third. But when you measure external debt/ GDP, UK is really bad ($10 trillion + external debt/$2 trillion + economy).
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Germany has $4 trillion + in external debt with a $2.8 trillion + GDP, while Norway is nearly equal.
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I am not overly impressed with the external debt/gdp ratio of any "developed" European country, most especially Ireland!
Poor and rich is very interesting to think about in other perspective than just production, especially.
Actually, I have known for a long time that Norway is overrated, its not ACTUALLY a rich country with rich people, mostly a rich state, and as you point out not even the state can in reality be considered rich. Its interesting about Scandinavia if you compare Norway to Denmark and Sweden, that after paid housing and food, because of prices, Norwegians are left with the least left over money for other things. Thats even before our extreme costs for things like buying and owning a car, which is also expensive in Denmark, and our humongous costs for "pleasure" in form of for example tobacco and alcohol which is rather popular in the scandinavian countries. So in the end you can conclude that a Norwegian who lives in a house, buys food, drives a car and use either/or both tobacco and alcohol is a far poorer man than his Swedish or Danish counterpart.
Also its interesting to look at work habits, and this is where it starts getting interesting with Norway vs the rest of Scandinavia, Norway vs Europe, Europe vs the US and so fourth. Because Norwegians work a LOT, they put in most hours of overtime of anyone in scandinavia, but why is that? I think because its the Norwegian population is considerably poorer than their Swedish neighbours..
Try explaining and talking about this with any other Norwegian than me, and he will lock down in "nationalist/we are best" modus just like Americans get when I talk about realities with them that contradict their rose tainted picture of their own country.
Housing is also incredibly important, the quality of such.. Norwegians for example spend a fortune on improving their housing, most in Europe I believe while a "comparable" country Belgium lets their housing rot in the hope the EU institutions will buy them and tear them down to make room for European Union buildings.
Ahhr, anyways, lots of interesting topics in reality. What has always and will always be very clear to me personally is that wealth is measured in a far different way than just GDP(production, activity).