Who owns the US?

[Lefty]

Some interesting footnotes:

According to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and CIA World Factbook, the order of countries by Gross Domestic Product (GDP):

1. USA $14.6 Trillion
2. China $5.7 Trillion (Overtook Japan in 2010, a historic event)
3. Japan $5.4 Trillion (World Bank states $5.07 Tr.; IMF & CIA both state $5.4 Tr.)
4. Germany $3.3 Trillion (Was #2 in 1966, became #3 in 1967 when Japan became #2. Japan held #2 from 1967 until 2010)
5. France $2.6 Trillion
6. UK $2.3 Trillion (IMF & CIA; World Bank $2.2 Tr.)
7. Italy $2 Trillion
8. Brazil $2 Trillion (IMF & CIA; World Bank $1.6 tr.)
Here it gets confusing as all three sources begin to diverge
9. Canada $1.5 Trillion (IMF & CIA; World Bank lists Spain at $1.5 Tr.)
10. Russia $1.48 Trillion (IMF & CIA; World Bank has #12 at $1.2 Tr.)

After that it is roughly India, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and S. Korea, all app. $1 Trillion each.

Largest Corp. in world by revenues and employees? WalMart, with $408 Billion in revenues and 2.1 million employees.
ExxonMobil comes in a distant second with merely $301 Billion.
If WalMart was a country, it would rank app. #25, around Norway and Saudi Arabia.

[RangerX]

I thought Walmart was a Chinese colony.....

[Troglodyte]

Lefty/Ron,

My concern is that, in addition to our solvency being questionable (can't repay all we've borrowed), many countries in the world would love to change the world's reserve currency simply to poke us in the eye. Note that the people calling for a change are not friends of ours, and are rich.

I suspect all that's saving us now is our relative stability and our manufacturing imports and exports--it's more convenient to sell to us or buy our stuff in dollars. If we slip from the world's slargest economy as predicted, well...

Meanwhile, I need to educate myself by reading Lefty's old posts.

Trog