I’m sure SSS can verify the accuracy of these numbers.
On the Global Numbers – CIA Edition
Submitted by Bruce Krastingon 02/24/2013 09:00 -0500
The CIA has some new 2011/2012 numbers for the world’s economy. These numbers are as “good” as the countries who post the individual data, so it’s safe to be suspect. That said, I found them interesting.
There’s 7B of us. I love the CIA’s precise estimate.
Only 47% of the population is in the workforce. 28% of the population is under 14 years of age, 8% is older than 65.
Of the 3.3 potential workers, fully 9.2% are unemployed.
I was surprised to see that the global unemployment rate had risen in 2012 by .8%. That’s a big change, It comes to an additional 26m people. Overall, some 300m people are looking for work. The numbers are big, the direction is bad. There is a case to be made about political stability with this many people not working.
The estimate for the USA is that 13m people are now unemployed. The US share of world unemployment is 4.3%, while US population is 4.4%. In other words, the US is right in the middle of the pack on unemployment. Not bad for the leading industrial economy……..
2012 was a so-so year for global growth, down YoY and down significantly from 2010.
The CIA measures total GDP, it came to a whopping $83T in 2012. The US share is 19%.
Global GDP rose $2.2T in 2012. How did that happen? Easy, more debt, money and inflation. The stock of money rose $6.1T, about 3Xs the increase in GDP. Given this, why is gold falling?
Where did all the new money come from? Debt, of course. Domestic and cross border debt marched ever higher:
Domestic debt rose by $5.1T, while cross bordered indebtedness rose $5.4T. Total debt is up by $10.5T while GDP rose only $2.2T. From this I conclude that it takes $1 of debt to produce a measly 20 cents of growth. Who was it that said that debt was an efficient stimulus for growth? There is no evidence of that in the CIA numbers.
The world is running a budget deficit. The government deficits increased by 3.8% (Vs. GDP of 3.3%) and by $2.7T (Vs. $2.2T of real growth). On balance, for each $1 increase in government debt, GDP rose by 80 cents.
Total government debt as a share of GDP is now at 65%.
The large deficits are happening even though global tax rates are high. There is not much blood to be had from the taxpayer’s stone:
Inflation was tame in 2012. With all that money sloshing around, one would think that the inflation numbers have to be headed higher.
The CIA data for 2012 is a mixed bag. There is no crisis at the moment, but there are troubling signs:
- Unemployment is dangerously high, social problems will be the result.
-Global growth is occurring as a result of ever higher debt loads, and a rapidly expanding money supply. Total debt is rising much faster than economic output. Every year we get more leveraged. The “efficiency” of debt is waning.
-Inflation is not a big issue today, but there is every reason to believe that this can’t be sustained.
Spy versus Spy
SSS says:
I’ve got a slight problem with that world population figure of 7,021,836,029. According to my meticulous calculations, they missed it by 10 people.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
0
24th February 2013 at 5:20 pm
AWD says:
I wonder how many billions that set of numbers cost.
I didn’t know the CIA hired accountants and actuaries.
SSS still uses his old equipment, the reception is better:
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
5 
0
24th February 2013 at 6:06 pm
Mikey says:
Hey, don’t knock the Shoe Phone!
Max had near perfect coverage in the 70s afterall!
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
24th February 2013 at 6:52 pm
SSS says:
AWD says:
“I wonder how many billions that set of numbers cost.”
Excellent question. The people who put together the “CIA World Factbook” work in the Directorate of Intelligence, which is largely manned by overt, versus undercover, employees. This is the branch which has the analysts who produce “finished intelligence” for government consumers with appropriate security clearances from the President on down.
How many people who work on the project of the Factbook I haven’t a clue, but it’s probably typical of government bloat. And the Factbook has been around since 1962, so if you add up the accumulated cost of producing this reference guide for over a half century, it probably does add up to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
Like or Dislike:
3 
0
24th February 2013 at 7:13 pm
AWD says:
“Those hemorrhoids are severe, they’re gonna have to come off”
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
24th February 2013 at 7:18 pm
Makati1 says:
The numbers have been cooked and stirred more than the chili I made last night. Fuzzy doesn’t begin to describe them. Fictitious, magical, fantasy, are better adjectives. While the author was typing the population numbers, there were more people born. It can only be a rough guess…and may be off by many millions. Ditto for the other numbers. And our taxpayer dollars paid a staff to write this fiction.
Like or Dislike:
0 
1
24th February 2013 at 8:49 pm
Stucky says:
The CIA actually reports more truthfully than the BLS.
Who woulda thunk it?
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
24th February 2013 at 9:00 pm
SSS says:
“While the author was typing the population numbers, there were more people born. It can only be a rough guess…and may be off by many millions. Ditto for the other numbers. And our taxpayer dollars paid a staff to write this fiction.”
—-Makati1
Of course you are at once right ……. and then again wrong. When the CIA’s World Factbook first started over 50 years ago, it was revised annually. Now, it is revised once or twice a WEEK based on overt reporting FROM AROUND THE WORLD which is fed into computers on birth rates, inflation rates, government spending and revenues, and a fucking ton of other factors. It is a mammoth undertaking.
I know of no other single source on the planet, public or private, that even attempts to collect and collate this type of information and update it as regularly as the Factbook. You are perfectly free to criticize it as fiction and dismiss it completely. Others disagee and keep it as a desktop reference.
Like or Dislike:
4 
1
24th February 2013 at 10:23 pm
SSS says:
“The CIA actually reports more truthfully than the BLS.”
—-Stucky
Agree. No where is that more important than unemployment stats in the U.S. and the U3 rate and the U6 rate, but even the CIA is in lockstep in reporting our U3 rate.
But I have to wonder. Is this disparity in unemployment the fault of the BLS, the media, TPTB, or a combination of all of the above? The U6 rate is certainly the more accurate, and some like Admin would argue even that is understated. And if the general public would read my comments, probably 98% or greater wouldn’t even understand what the fuck I’m talking about.
How did we get to the ridiculous point of saying people who are unemployed and have stopped looking for work don’t count as being unemployed? Damn, wouldn’t it be sweet if some senior CIA official were to say, “We’re not playing that game any more. Report the U6 rate.” In my dreams.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
6 
0
24th February 2013 at 10:51 pm
Makati1 says:
If you trust the CIA for anything, you are either under their employ or their surveillance. Who reports the numbers? Agents? Or are they self-reported by such ‘reliable’ people as the Saudis or the Israelis? What country in Africa or South America or even Asia have a true census count of their people? I live in the Philippines and they admit that the population of Manila is not accurate with in millions, but a guesstimate. Hell, even the US is guessing as not everyone is counted every ten years and many ‘dead’ people are still voting. The numbers are made up ‘guesstimates’. That they are more factual than other fiction is debatable. Every country is fudging the numbers today. Every one of them.
Like or Dislike:
3 
1
24th February 2013 at 11:32 pm
SSS says:
“What country in Africa or South America or even Asia have a true census count of their people? I live in the Philippines and they admit that the population of Manila is not accurate with in millions, but a guesstimate.”
—-makati1
“Of course you are at once right ……. and then again wrong.”
SSS @ makati1
Of course the CIA World Factbook is a guesstimate. I already acknowledged that. But it’s one of the BEST guesstimates we have for a general global demographic on many statistics. If you’ve got something better, post a link.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
24th February 2013 at 11:50 pm