Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberSEO
GDP per capita for Russia is $25,411 / year, but as I said above it's stupid to calculate it in USD, since it's an internal product (we use rubles here). Also there are two things you don't aware of: |
it's actually $9,055... PPP one is after bs "adjustments", which is not what we are discussing here... average Russian makes $9k/year and that's that... so average citizen can afford 12 $750 iphones per year... or 25% of a $36k BMW per year... or one $9000 vacation to Paris... etc... there is no "adjusting" out of that reality...
"65 Russia 9,055"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...al)_per_capita
Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberSEO
1) GDP is not that you earn but also it's what you spend. For example, the States spend a lot to their useless and overpriced army. This money inflates your GDP (the US GDP per capita is 55,805 which is 2x times more than in Russia) but it doesn't make your life better, because you just waste this money, not earn it.
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GDP is what you produce, not what you spend...
if we are going to go by what you spend, standard of living in the US is actually higher than what GDP would suggest, because we spend more than we produce...
Quote:
Originally Posted by CyberSEO
2) Russian GDP is an absolutely useful number which has no relation to the real life. It doesn't include "black salaries", "откаты" (I really can't find the proper English translation/explanation) etc. Most of the money here circulate in "grey" and "black" zones. Even when you buy apartments or a house, you pay with cash (yes I mean a real case with money like in all those movies about mafia). This cash is not documented somehow and is not included into the official GDP. I'll try to show you a very simple example. When you want to move from one district of your city to the another one you simple call a taxi. Do you know that most of Russians do? They just raise a hand, stop a car (not a taxi, just a random car) and pay to a driver in cash for delivery. You can't do this in the States because work w/o a license and tax evasion are the crimes there. Here in Russia it's a usual thing which everybody does.
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every country has this problem, in Russia it may be informal taxi service like you suggested, in the US it might be some entrepreneur growing and selling illegal weed... but in all countries best efforts are made to estimate these gray market economies, it's not like they are ignored and not included in the GDP just because they are not listed on some government tax form...