According to Dr. Gloom and Doom (or Boom and Glow) the GDP figure as calculated now in Western governments (statisticians) are as accurate as government unemployment figures.
In fact, statisticians, in order to account for the fact that in some countries the price level is far lower than in the Western industrialized countries, have calculated the GDP level based on purchasing power parities (PPP). And while I have some doubts about the methodology of PPP- adjusted GDP figures, it is nevertheless interesting to see how large the emerging economies are when based on this measurement: Asia - including China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Vietnam - has a PPP-adjusted GDP of US$14 trillion, which is 50% larger than the U.S.'s PPP-adjusted GDP of US$9.6 trillion.
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