Global Economy: Europe Richer Than America

FORBES.com ^ | 09.15.09 | Parmy Olson

[wolf78]

U.S. wealth, measured in assets under management, has fallen farther than its transatlantic cousin's.

LONDON -- As market participants reflect on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, so emerges the sobering consequence of the market crash that followed: North America's wealth has now fallen the most out of any other region in the world, allowing Europe to step up to the plate as the world's richest continent.

North America, defined as the United States and Canada, had $29.3 trillion in assets under management in 2008, while Europe had $32.7 trillion, according to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group.

North America had the steepest decline of all regions last year, with total wealth as measured by assets under management dropping by 21.8%. One reason is the region's heavy investment in shares: North America still has the highest proportion of wealth held in equities, according to Boston Consulting, at 38% in 2008. That proportion had been even higher in 2008, at 50%.

[wolf78]

Front Page newsworthy?

[bgill]

Fine, then let Europe pay the majority of the UN gimme $$$$$$$$.

[NativeNewYorker]

Assets under management in London include the money accumulated by the oil exporters, and stolen by the African kleptocrats. It is NOT simply a measure of how wealthy Europeans are.

[corkoman]

and while we are at it I say we pull all US troops out of Europe.

Someone tell me again why the US taxpayer is shelling out $$$ for bases in Wurzberg, Abiano, etc??

[Delphster]

Fine, then let Europe pay the majority of the UN gimme $$$$$$$$

And their own national defense.

[uscabjd]

Europe also has more people.

[agere_contra]

The article is true but retarded. Europe has 830 million people compared with what, 300 million in America?

[KarlInOhio]

Assets under management in London include ... and stolen by the African kleptocrats.

It also includes money being hidden by honest people from African kleptocrats. Thus there is probably a lot of American money there now.

[jpl]

I agree. It's been well over sixty years since WWII ended, and nearly twenty since the collapse of the old Soviet Union.

It's time for us to declare that the Marshall Plan is over, and the nations of Europe can decide for themselves whether or not they want to have a real defense force. Especially since we're broke.

[The Toll]

I measure wealth in Nimitz Class.

[wolf78]

Quote: “Fine, then let Europe pay the majority of the UN gimme $$$$$$$$.”

It already does - by far. Contributions to the UN budget:

US 22%

Germany 8.6%
UK 6.6%
France 6.3%
Italy 5.1%
Spain 3.0%

That’s 29.6% already - not counting the smaller European states.

However, on a per capita basis, Japan should be the biggest donor. 127 million people pay 16.6% of the UN budget, or roughly double what the average American pays.

[puppypusher]

Good!That settles it.Let Europe use it’s financial wealth to bail out the rest of the world.Europe has been sucking off of the U.S. Long enough.

[vpintheak]

Too bad Europe isn’t a country.

[wolf78]

Good!That settles it.Let Europe use it’s financial wealth to bail out the rest of the world.Europe has been sucking off of the U.S. Long enough.

Not necessarily. The trade balance / Current Account Balance points in the other direction.

[wolf78]

No it isn’t - neither is America. For the intents of this study “America” refers to the US plus Canada.

[Teacher317]

North America, defined as the United States and Canada, had $29.3 trillion in assets under management in 2008, while Europe had $32.7 trillion, according to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group.

Creating interesting "news" by manipulating the definitions. *YAWN* Apparently, Mexico fell off of North America. Mexico's GDP is over a trillion, so it's not hard to imagine that they bump up our total... and I'd be willing to bet that all of Russia got included in the "Europe" total, even though vast proportions are in Asia. Europe probably gets as many nations added as possible (Turkey, too?), and North America has all of Latin America (the only growing area) taken off it's list.

[vpintheak]

Got it. Thanks. We can see that the real stingy ones again are the lefties, this time in Europe.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Someone tell me again why the US taxpayer is shelling out $$$ for bases in Wurzberg, Abiano, etc

Uh.... strategic location of resources.

[corkoman]

hmmm...I think we be through paying for that strategery.

[Grampa Dave]

Typical bs from Forbes:

Demographics of Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Total population|Population by country|Age|Religion
Europe has a population of roughly 830.4 million, or about 11% of world population (as of 2009). Population growth is comparatively slow, and median age comparatively high in relation to the world’s other continents.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Europe - 157k - Cached

USA. CANADA. Advantage. Population. 303,824,640. 33,212,696 rounded off to 337,000,000.

Europe has over twice the population of America and Canada and not that far from 3 times.

So on a per person basis, Europe’s total wealth should be at least 2.5 times North America’s.

It ain’t.

Typical bs from Forbes