off topic economy question

[preacherzero]

Actually all those countries have massive external debts that exceed their GDP and so cannot be considered economically stable, there is actually no longer any western nation that fits the criteria and China is only maintaining it's healthy glow because it feeds from the teat of western consumerism, they depend on us to keep themselves solvent.
That's just my (very vague) opinion tho'

I think you may be confusing economic stability with standard of living in which case most of the countries named already do figure pretty high on the list (and there is a list).
Although there are aspects of each factor influencing the other they are not really interchangeable terms.

I'd say a country like Brunai is more eligible to be called economically stable.
The interweb says Brunei is ranked 4th in the world by gross domestic product per capita and has an external debt of effectively zero.
That means it's fucking rich... and doesn't owe anybody any money.

Nice.

It has the second highest Human Development Index among the South East Asia nations and is classed as a developed country.
So it's people are smart and have access to technology.

Also nice.

On the downside it is pretty much a police state and classed as "Not Free" by FH (in fact the country has been under de facto martial law since the early 60's).
But I suspect that the fascist leaning monarchy's tight grip actually plays a large part in maintaining stability.

[Morsigil]

Your post inspired me to research Brunei on Wikipedia, which led to freethinkers, which led to irreligion, and so on.

Anyway, Brunei is a weird place and in an "ideal" situation. They have valuable resources (natural gas and petroleum) which are controlled by the government. It's like a country run by an Islam-oriented mega corporation. Free health care, the country relies on pretty much no one for their food, and all you have to do is pay homage to His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, also known as General Haji Sir Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah GCB GCMG, who is also the religious head of the state.

[Wolfang]

Economic stability is not measured by debt. A healthy world economy needs people who are indebted and people who are owed money . This doesn't necesserily mean the ones that owe the money have a less stable economy. Oft times it is because they have a stable economy that people dare lend them money enz enz

I wouldn't consider Brunei to be a place anyone would want to live in if the live in a typical western country..

[teengames]

Yeah I'm not asking like what countries are developed rich no debt and perfect but countries that don't suffer HUGE economic surpluses/deficits like a country that owes 500bil I would consider not too much debt (depending on size too of course) and also factor in who has the resources and man power to get out of their debt in say 10 years

[preacherzero]

Economic stability is not measured by debt. A healthy world economy needs people who are indebted and people who are owed money . This doesn't necessarily mean the ones that owe the money have a less stable economy. Oft times it is because they have a stable economy that people dare lend them money enz enz

I wouldn't consider Brunei to be a place anyone would want to live in if the live in a typical western country..

Correct... Sort of, that's a bit of a strawman really but w/e
Economic stability is measured by amount of debt within the Maastricht Treaty guidelines.

"A healthy world economy needs people who are indebted and people who are owed money ."

Tell that to the people who had their homes foreclosed.

Debt never leads to a healthy, stable, perpetually growing economy... that much is brutally self evident.
I dunno if you've noticed bro but that "healthy" debt based system is falling apart around us.
If you look around most western nations have exceeded the ceiling and many are well above 100% GDP... It would seem the debt=growth model you infer isn't too healthy after all.
I mean... have you watched the news lately? All this "healthy" debt seems to be destroying the EU, causing chaos on world markets and in general going completely batshit mental.

The result of a credit (and therefore debt) based economy... Maybe it works on paper but hey, so did communism and ironically enough the current system is mirroring the crash of the Soviet system quite well.


I wouldn't like to live in Brunei either but that's a non sequitur and it's still far more economically stable than any country named so far.

@Screwbag: dude wtf Norway has a national debt that stands at 141% GDP, it's in the top 20 indebted western nations... Unless they managed to pay that off in the last 12 days.

[Potjeh]

Debt never leads to a healthy, stable, perpetually growing economy... that much is brutally self evident.

Just like how taking out a business loan to expand faster never leads to growth of your company, amirite?

Recommended playing

[Wolfang]

Obviously I meant it's healthy until people start lending money to poor people just because of the value their houses might have in a far future, or other ludicrous interest schemes.

In general terms it is accepted that the world benefits hugely from lending/borrowing money. You're going to have a very hard time trying to convince anyone otherwise.

Im not sure if you've been looking at history lately, but since widescale lending has come into action, you can clearly see the graph going up like a fucking rocket. Heck, 2 generations ago my family members died of starvation, now..

[dagrimreefah]

Obviously I meant it's healthy until people start lending money to poor people just because of the value their houses might have in a far future, or other ludicrous interest schemes.

In general terms it is accepted that the world benefits hugely from lending/borrowing money. You're going to have a very hard time trying to convince anyone otherwise.

Im not sure if you've been looking at history lately, but since widescale lending has come into action, you can clearly see the graph going up like a fucking rocket. Heck, 2 generations ago my family members died of starvation, now..

Credit (borrowing money) is like any market. Markets are good of course, but when you start fucking with the market (i.e. trying to stimulate borrowing and thus, spending by lowering interest rates like central banks are doing today) that is not good. It sends false impressions to investors and they make foolish investments they otherwise wouldn't make, not to mention grossly exaggerated market trends. Borrowing money is good, but only if it is on the terms of the market, not the current banking/government cartel's system of cheap money.

[Endora]

In general terms it is accepted that the world benefits hugely from lending/borrowing money. You're going to have a very hard time trying to convince anyone otherwise.

Huh, wow. I'd say that's grossly innacurate. The Bretton Woods system and it's structural adjustment program has played a key part in probing developing countries of their economic wealth. People are still starving make no mistake.

[Wolfang]

@dagrim; that's right, I don't see if you're disagreeing with my post in any way since they are both very much the same.

@Endora; I don't see what you mean by 'probing developing countries of wealth'?

Also, I never said people weren't starving, I'm saying that, as opposed to one century back, there are many parts of the world where starvation is now nonexistant. Much of this is due to economic growth, in which a major part is played by lending and borrowing money. The countries that are 'starving' or poor or often like this due to lacking governmental structure or stability, which makes lending money to these countries a risk.

I'm by no means an expert at economics, but this is what I study, so I'm just writing down what I'm taught.

I also believe many of you are confusing public debt with external debt. Norway does indeed have a very low governmental debt (which is the debt we hear about on the news). But once again, debt is not a way to measure a country's stability or economical level.