From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sat Oct 20 2007 - 16:30:57 EDT
Oh, I forgot to mention - calculating from a recent article by Martin Wolf, I get a current estimate of the stock of total global financial assets of about $170 trillion in round figures, which is roughly three and a half times the value of annual world GDP. Specifically, Wolf claims that SWFs worth $2.2 trillion are "approximately 1.3 per cent of the world's stock of financial assets (stocks, bonds and bank deposits)" (see Martin Wolf, "The brave new world of state capitalism", FT 16 October 2007; he does not cite his sources). This leaves out of account the capitalised value of some other financial products. The value of the total stock of global physical assets (fixed assets and durables) has to be significantly larger, since the USA alone (on federal budget estimates) is worth about $50 trillion in terms of its physical assets (land, fixed capital, durables, inventories). EU statistical agencies seem to be badly managed and unaccountable, and therefore you practically need a Phd, a highpowered PC and a fat wallet to find your way through the labyrinth of bad information design. Statistical information like anything becomes a commodity (never mind that you, as taxpayer, funded it), and I expect that in the long run it will be impossible to find anything out anymore about the world, unless you can pay, except for that gratis information which the authorities and corporations wish you to have - i.e. information access becomes conditional on capital ownership, the very antithesis of the "open society". Jurriaan
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