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Weekend Economists Vuelvan a Cuba February 13-16, 2015
The stock markets will be closed on Monday, Presidents Day, so we will be offering 3 day Weekend this week....and get a little further in our visit to Cuba...specifically
Economy of Cuba From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The economy of Cuba is a centrally planned economy dominated by state-run enterprises overseen by the Cuban government, though there remains significant foreign investment and personal enterprise in Cuba. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government, and most of the labor force is employed by the state, although in recent years, the formation of cooperatives and self-employment has been encouraged by the Communist Party.
In the year 2000, public sector employment was 76% and private sector, mainly composed by personal property, employment was 23% compared to the 1981 ratio of 91% to 8%. Capital investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods to citizens. In 2009, Cuba ranked 51st out of 182 with an HDI (Human Development Index) of 0.863; remarkably high considering its GDP per capita only places it 95th. Public services and transportation in Cuba, however, are second-rate compared to more developed counterparts on the mainland. In 2012, the country's public debt was measured at 35.3% of GDP. At the same time, inflation (CDP) was ranked at 5.5%. Furthermore, in the same year, the economy encountered a 3% growth in GDP.
Before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, Cuba's capital, Havana, was a "glittering and dynamic city". The country's economy in the early part of the century, fueled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown dynamically. Cuba ranked 5th in per capita income in the hemisphere, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and 1st in the number of television sets per inhabitant. Cuba's literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America. Cuba also ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita. Several private clinics and hospitals provided services for the poor. Cuba's income distribution compared favorably with that of other Latin American societies. A thriving middle class, according to PBS, held the promise of prosperity and social mobility.
Cuba had a vibrant but extremely unequal economy, with large capital outflows to foreign investors. The country compared favourably with Spain and Portugal on socioeconomic measures. Furthermore, its income in 1929 was reportedly 41% of the US, thus higher than in some Southern states of the US, such as Mississippi and South Carolina. The country has made significant progress towards a more even distribution of income since the Revolution and being placed under economic embargo by the United States. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's GDP declined by 33% between 1990 and 1993, partially due to loss of Soviet subsidies and to a crash in sugar prices in the early 1990s. Yet Cuba has managed to retain high levels of healthcare and education.
Housing and transportation costs are low and Cubans receive free education, health care, and food subsidies. Corruption is common, although allegedly lower than in most other countries in Latin America. In the book, Corruption in Cuba, Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge F. Pérez-López Servando state that Cuba has "institutionalized" corruption and that state-run monopolies, cronyism, and lack of accountability have made Cuba one of the world's most corrupt states".
History
Prior to the Cuban Revolution, Cuba was one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America. Cuba became an exotic and favorite destination for some of America's wealthiest. They came for bouts of gambling, horse racing, golfing and country-clubbing. American tourism became Cuba's flowing source of revenue. Tourism magazine Cabaret Quarterly described Havana as "a mistress of pleasure, the lush and opulent goddess of delights." According to Cuba historian Louis Perez of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Havana was then what Las Vegas has become."
Cuba had a one-crop economy whose domestic market was constricted. Its population was characterized by chronic unemployment and deep poverty. United States monopolies like Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Speyer gained control over Cuba's national resources from which they made huge profits. The banks and the country's entire financial system, all electric power production and most industry was dominated by US capital. US monopolies owned 25 percent of the best land in Cuba and more than 80 percent of all farm lands were occupied by sugar and livestock-raising latifundia. 90 percent of the country's raw sugar and tobacco exports was sent to the USA. Before the Revolution most Cuban children were not included in the school system. There was almost no machine-building industry in Cuba. During this period in the 1950s Cuba was as rich per capita as Italy was and richer than Japan.
87 percent of urban homes had electricity, but only 10 percent of rural homes did. Only 15 percent of rural homes had running water. Nearly half the rural population was illiterate as was about 25 percent of the total population. Poverty and unemployment in the rural areas forced desperate residents to migrate to Havana where high levels of crime and prostitution existed. More than 40 percent of the Cuban workforce in 1958 were either underemployed or unemployed. Schools for blacks and mulattoes were vastly inferior to those for whites. Afro-Cubans had the worst living conditions and held the lowest paid jobs.
The economy of Cuba is a centrally planned economy dominated by state-run enterprises overseen by the Cuban government, though there remains significant foreign investment and personal enterprise in Cuba. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government, and most of the labor force is employed by the state, although in recent years, the formation of cooperatives and self-employment has been encouraged by the Communist Party.
In the year 2000, public sector employment was 76% and private sector, mainly composed by personal property, employment was 23% compared to the 1981 ratio of 91% to 8%. Capital investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods to citizens. In 2009, Cuba ranked 51st out of 182 with an HDI (Human Development Index) of 0.863; remarkably high considering its GDP per capita only places it 95th. Public services and transportation in Cuba, however, are second-rate compared to more developed counterparts on the mainland. In 2012, the country's public debt was measured at 35.3% of GDP. At the same time, inflation (CDP) was ranked at 5.5%. Furthermore, in the same year, the economy encountered a 3% growth in GDP.
Before Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, Cuba's capital, Havana, was a "glittering and dynamic city". The country's economy in the early part of the century, fueled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown dynamically. Cuba ranked 5th in per capita income in the hemisphere, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and 1st in the number of television sets per inhabitant. Cuba's literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America. Cuba also ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita. Several private clinics and hospitals provided services for the poor. Cuba's income distribution compared favorably with that of other Latin American societies. A thriving middle class, according to PBS, held the promise of prosperity and social mobility.
Cuba had a vibrant but extremely unequal economy, with large capital outflows to foreign investors. The country compared favourably with Spain and Portugal on socioeconomic measures. Furthermore, its income in 1929 was reportedly 41% of the US, thus higher than in some Southern states of the US, such as Mississippi and South Carolina. The country has made significant progress towards a more even distribution of income since the Revolution and being placed under economic embargo by the United States. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's GDP declined by 33% between 1990 and 1993, partially due to loss of Soviet subsidies and to a crash in sugar prices in the early 1990s. Yet Cuba has managed to retain high levels of healthcare and education.
Housing and transportation costs are low and Cubans receive free education, health care, and food subsidies. Corruption is common, although allegedly lower than in most other countries in Latin America. In the book, Corruption in Cuba, Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge F. Pérez-López Servando state that Cuba has "institutionalized" corruption and that state-run monopolies, cronyism, and lack of accountability have made Cuba one of the world's most corrupt states".
History
Prior to the Cuban Revolution, Cuba was one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America. Cuba became an exotic and favorite destination for some of America's wealthiest. They came for bouts of gambling, horse racing, golfing and country-clubbing. American tourism became Cuba's flowing source of revenue. Tourism magazine Cabaret Quarterly described Havana as "a mistress of pleasure, the lush and opulent goddess of delights." According to Cuba historian Louis Perez of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Havana was then what Las Vegas has become."
Cuba had a one-crop economy whose domestic market was constricted. Its population was characterized by chronic unemployment and deep poverty. United States monopolies like Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Speyer gained control over Cuba's national resources from which they made huge profits. The banks and the country's entire financial system, all electric power production and most industry was dominated by US capital. US monopolies owned 25 percent of the best land in Cuba and more than 80 percent of all farm lands were occupied by sugar and livestock-raising latifundia. 90 percent of the country's raw sugar and tobacco exports was sent to the USA. Before the Revolution most Cuban children were not included in the school system. There was almost no machine-building industry in Cuba. During this period in the 1950s Cuba was as rich per capita as Italy was and richer than Japan.
87 percent of urban homes had electricity, but only 10 percent of rural homes did. Only 15 percent of rural homes had running water. Nearly half the rural population was illiterate as was about 25 percent of the total population. Poverty and unemployment in the rural areas forced desperate residents to migrate to Havana where high levels of crime and prostitution existed. More than 40 percent of the Cuban workforce in 1958 were either underemployed or unemployed. Schools for blacks and mulattoes were vastly inferior to those for whites. Afro-Cubans had the worst living conditions and held the lowest paid jobs.
58 replies
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Cuban Revolution
In 1959, Fidel Castro seized assets valued at 9 Billion American dollars. During the Revolutionary period Cuba was one of the few developing countries to provide foreign aid. Foreign aid began with the construction of six hospitals in Peru in the early 1970s. The value of those businesses today would be worth 1.89 trillion dollars at the 11.42% rate of growth that the average US company has experienced from 1959 to 2014. But Cuba will have a very difficult time repaying the 1.89 trillion seized due to the extremely weak economic performance over the last half century. Cuba's current annual GDP is roughly 1/20th of the current value of what was seized, illustrating in clear terms the different rates of economic growth of the US and Cuban economy.
Foreign aid expanded later in the 1970s to the point where some 8000 Cubans worked in overseas assignments. Cubans built housing, roads, airports, schools, and other facilities in Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, Guinea, Tanzania, and other countries. By the end of 1985, 35,000 Cuban workers had helped build projects in some 20 Asian, African and Latin American countries.
For Nicaragua in 1982, Cuba pledged to provide over $130 million worth of agricultural and machinery equipment, as well as some 4000 technicians, doctors, and teachers.
In 1986 Cuba defaulted on its $10.9 billion debt to the Paris Club. In 1987 Cuba stopped paying entirely on the $10.9 billion Paris Club debts. In 2002 Cuba defaulted on $750 million in Japanese debts.
Some have attributed Cuban economic growth to Soviet subsidies. However, comparative economic data from 1989 showed that the amount of Soviet aid was in line with the amount of Western aid to many Latin American countries.
The prostitution of children with lax penalization and human trafficking for profit is reported in Cuba as a source country for the global black market industry. Cuba has been ranked in the lowest global rating of Tier 3 which is defined for a government's failure to meet minimum standards to prevent trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.
"Special Period"
The Cuban economy is still recovering from a decline in gross domestic product of at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 due to the loss of 80% of its trading partners and Soviet subsidies. This loss of subsidies coincided with a collapse in world sugar prices. Sugar had done well from 1985-1990 and crashed precipitously in 1990-1991 and did not recover for five years. Cuba had been insulated from world sugar prices by Soviet price guarantees.
This era was referred to as the "Special Period in Peacetime" later shortened to "Special Period". A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper claimed that "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s, on the grounds that both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed, and priority was given to the elite classes and the military." Other reports painted an equally dismal picture, describing Cubans having to resort to eating anything they could find, from Havana Zoo animals to domestic cats. But although the collapse of centrally planned economies in the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc meant that Cuba experienced severe economic difficulties, which led to a drop in calories per day from 3052 in 1989 to 2600 in 2006, mortality rates show a remarkably slight impact on public health thanks to the priority given by the government to maintaining a social safety net.
The government undertook several reforms to stem excess liquidity, increase labour incentives, and alleviate serious shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. To alleviate the economic crisis, the government introduced a few market-oriented reforms including opening to tourism, allowing foreign investment, legalizing the U.S. dollar, and authorizing self-employment for some 150 occupations. (This policy was later partially reversed, so that while the U.S. dollar is no longer accepted in businesses, it remains legal for Cubans to hold the currency.) These measures resulted in modest economic growth. The liberalized agricultural markets introduced in October 1994, at which state and private farmers sell above-quota production at free market prices, have broadened legal consumption alternatives and reduced black market prices. Another (less visible) cause of the economic decline was the decrease in the world demand and world price for sugar, gradually replaced by corn syrup, 30% cheaper, after 1985.
Government efforts to lower subsidies to unprofitable enterprises and to shrink the money supply caused the semi-official exchange rate for the Cuban peso to move from a peak of 120 to the dollar in the summer of 1994 to 21 to the dollar by year-end 1999. Living conditions in 1999 remained well below the 1989 level.
Havana announced in 1995 that GDP declined by 35% during 1989-93, the result of lost Soviet aid and domestic inefficiencies. The drop in GDP apparently halted in 1994, when Cuba reported 0.7% growth, followed by increases of 2.5% in 1995 and 7.8% in 1996. Growth slowed again in 1997 and 1998 to 2.5% and 1.2% respectively. One of the key reasons given was the failure to notice that sugar production had become dramatically uneconomic. Reflecting on the Special period Cuban president Fidel Castro later admitted that many mistakes had been made, "The country had many economists and it is not my intention to criticize them, but I would like to ask why we hadn’t discovered earlier that maintaining our levels of sugar production would be impossible. The Soviet Union had collapsed, oil was costing $40 a barrel, sugar prices were at basement levels, so why did we not rationalize the industry?"
In 1959, Fidel Castro seized assets valued at 9 Billion American dollars. During the Revolutionary period Cuba was one of the few developing countries to provide foreign aid. Foreign aid began with the construction of six hospitals in Peru in the early 1970s. The value of those businesses today would be worth 1.89 trillion dollars at the 11.42% rate of growth that the average US company has experienced from 1959 to 2014. But Cuba will have a very difficult time repaying the 1.89 trillion seized due to the extremely weak economic performance over the last half century. Cuba's current annual GDP is roughly 1/20th of the current value of what was seized, illustrating in clear terms the different rates of economic growth of the US and Cuban economy.
Foreign aid expanded later in the 1970s to the point where some 8000 Cubans worked in overseas assignments. Cubans built housing, roads, airports, schools, and other facilities in Angola, Ethiopia, Laos, Guinea, Tanzania, and other countries. By the end of 1985, 35,000 Cuban workers had helped build projects in some 20 Asian, African and Latin American countries.
For Nicaragua in 1982, Cuba pledged to provide over $130 million worth of agricultural and machinery equipment, as well as some 4000 technicians, doctors, and teachers.
In 1986 Cuba defaulted on its $10.9 billion debt to the Paris Club. In 1987 Cuba stopped paying entirely on the $10.9 billion Paris Club debts. In 2002 Cuba defaulted on $750 million in Japanese debts.
Some have attributed Cuban economic growth to Soviet subsidies. However, comparative economic data from 1989 showed that the amount of Soviet aid was in line with the amount of Western aid to many Latin American countries.
The prostitution of children with lax penalization and human trafficking for profit is reported in Cuba as a source country for the global black market industry. Cuba has been ranked in the lowest global rating of Tier 3 which is defined for a government's failure to meet minimum standards to prevent trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.
"Special Period"
The Cuban economy is still recovering from a decline in gross domestic product of at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 due to the loss of 80% of its trading partners and Soviet subsidies. This loss of subsidies coincided with a collapse in world sugar prices. Sugar had done well from 1985-1990 and crashed precipitously in 1990-1991 and did not recover for five years. Cuba had been insulated from world sugar prices by Soviet price guarantees.
This era was referred to as the "Special Period in Peacetime" later shortened to "Special Period". A Canadian Medical Association Journal paper claimed that "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s, on the grounds that both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed, and priority was given to the elite classes and the military." Other reports painted an equally dismal picture, describing Cubans having to resort to eating anything they could find, from Havana Zoo animals to domestic cats. But although the collapse of centrally planned economies in the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc meant that Cuba experienced severe economic difficulties, which led to a drop in calories per day from 3052 in 1989 to 2600 in 2006, mortality rates show a remarkably slight impact on public health thanks to the priority given by the government to maintaining a social safety net.
The government undertook several reforms to stem excess liquidity, increase labour incentives, and alleviate serious shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. To alleviate the economic crisis, the government introduced a few market-oriented reforms including opening to tourism, allowing foreign investment, legalizing the U.S. dollar, and authorizing self-employment for some 150 occupations. (This policy was later partially reversed, so that while the U.S. dollar is no longer accepted in businesses, it remains legal for Cubans to hold the currency.) These measures resulted in modest economic growth. The liberalized agricultural markets introduced in October 1994, at which state and private farmers sell above-quota production at free market prices, have broadened legal consumption alternatives and reduced black market prices. Another (less visible) cause of the economic decline was the decrease in the world demand and world price for sugar, gradually replaced by corn syrup, 30% cheaper, after 1985.
Government efforts to lower subsidies to unprofitable enterprises and to shrink the money supply caused the semi-official exchange rate for the Cuban peso to move from a peak of 120 to the dollar in the summer of 1994 to 21 to the dollar by year-end 1999. Living conditions in 1999 remained well below the 1989 level.
Havana announced in 1995 that GDP declined by 35% during 1989-93, the result of lost Soviet aid and domestic inefficiencies. The drop in GDP apparently halted in 1994, when Cuba reported 0.7% growth, followed by increases of 2.5% in 1995 and 7.8% in 1996. Growth slowed again in 1997 and 1998 to 2.5% and 1.2% respectively. One of the key reasons given was the failure to notice that sugar production had become dramatically uneconomic. Reflecting on the Special period Cuban president Fidel Castro later admitted that many mistakes had been made, "The country had many economists and it is not my intention to criticize them, but I would like to ask why we hadn’t discovered earlier that maintaining our levels of sugar production would be impossible. The Soviet Union had collapsed, oil was costing $40 a barrel, sugar prices were at basement levels, so why did we not rationalize the industry?"
http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/fricasse-de-pollo-cuban-style-chicken-stew
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS
¼ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup fresh orange juice
3 cloves garlic, lightly smashed
1 (3½-4-lb.) chicken, quartered (backbone discarded or saved for stock)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
⅓ cup olive oil
1 large green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
1 cup dry white wine
1 lb. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
½ cup jarred alcaparrado or ⅓ cup pimento-stuffed olives and 2 tbsp. capers
¼ cup raisins
1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce
1 cup frozen peas, defrosted
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Toss lime and orange juices, garlic, chicken, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap; chill 1 hour.
2. Heat oil in an 8-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Remove chicken from marinade; pat dry using paper towels and reserve marinade. Working in batches, cook chicken, flipping once, until browned, 8–10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate. Add bell pepper and onion to pan; cook until soft, 6–8 minutes. Add wine; cook, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan, until reduced by half, 5–7 minutes. Return chicken to pan and add reserved marinade, potatoes, alcaparrado, raisins, tomato sauce, salt, pepper, and ½ cup water; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, covered, until chicken and potatoes are tender, about 45 minutes. Stir in peas before serving.
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS
¼ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup fresh orange juice
3 cloves garlic, lightly smashed
1 (3½-4-lb.) chicken, quartered (backbone discarded or saved for stock)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
⅓ cup olive oil
1 large green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
1 cup dry white wine
1 lb. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
½ cup jarred alcaparrado or ⅓ cup pimento-stuffed olives and 2 tbsp. capers
¼ cup raisins
1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce
1 cup frozen peas, defrosted
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Toss lime and orange juices, garlic, chicken, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap; chill 1 hour.
2. Heat oil in an 8-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Remove chicken from marinade; pat dry using paper towels and reserve marinade. Working in batches, cook chicken, flipping once, until browned, 8–10 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate. Add bell pepper and onion to pan; cook until soft, 6–8 minutes. Add wine; cook, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan, until reduced by half, 5–7 minutes. Return chicken to pan and add reserved marinade, potatoes, alcaparrado, raisins, tomato sauce, salt, pepper, and ½ cup water; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, covered, until chicken and potatoes are tender, about 45 minutes. Stir in peas before serving.
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cuban-Style-Ropa-Vieja
INGREDIENTS
6 oz. bacon, roughly chopped
2 lb. flank steak, cut into 1 ½? strips
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 Cubanelle or green pepper, thinly sliced
6 oz. tomato paste
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tbsp. dried thyme
1 tbsp. dried oregano
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
½ cup dry white wine
2 cups beef stock
1 (16-oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed
½ cup halved, pitted green olives
⅓ cup sliced jarred pimiento peppers
3 tbsp. capers, rinsed and drained
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
¼ cup roughly chopped cilantro
INSTRUCTIONS
Render bacon in a 6-qt. Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Transfer to a plate, leaving fat in pot. Season steak with salt and pepper. Working in batches, cook until browned on both sides, about 6 minutes; transfer to plate. Add onion and peppers; cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add tomato paste, cumin, thyme, oregano, garlic, and bay leaf; cook until lightly caramelized, about 3 minutes. Add wine; cook, scraping bottom of pot, for 1 minute. Return bacon and steak to pot with stock and tomatoes; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, covered, until steak is very tender, 2–3 hours. Remove steak, and shred; return meat to pot with olives, pimientos, capers, and vinegar. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Stir in cilantro before serving.
INGREDIENTS
6 oz. bacon, roughly chopped
2 lb. flank steak, cut into 1 ½? strips
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 Cubanelle or green pepper, thinly sliced
6 oz. tomato paste
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tbsp. dried thyme
1 tbsp. dried oregano
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
½ cup dry white wine
2 cups beef stock
1 (16-oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed
½ cup halved, pitted green olives
⅓ cup sliced jarred pimiento peppers
3 tbsp. capers, rinsed and drained
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
¼ cup roughly chopped cilantro
INSTRUCTIONS
Render bacon in a 6-qt. Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Transfer to a plate, leaving fat in pot. Season steak with salt and pepper. Working in batches, cook until browned on both sides, about 6 minutes; transfer to plate. Add onion and peppers; cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add tomato paste, cumin, thyme, oregano, garlic, and bay leaf; cook until lightly caramelized, about 3 minutes. Add wine; cook, scraping bottom of pot, for 1 minute. Return bacon and steak to pot with stock and tomatoes; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, covered, until steak is very tender, 2–3 hours. Remove steak, and shred; return meat to pot with olives, pimientos, capers, and vinegar. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Stir in cilantro before serving.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. It was created by Indian economist Amartya Sen and Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, and was published by the United Nations Development Programme.
The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)" and "the HDI can be viewed as an index of 'potential' human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)".
The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Development Reports of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). These were devised and launched by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990 and had the explicit purpose "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies". To produce the Human Development Reports, Mahbub ul Haq brought together a group of development economists including Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand and Meghnad Desai. Working along with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, they worked on capabilities and functionings that provided the underlying conceptual framework. Haq was sure that a simple composite measure of human development was needed in order to convince the public, academics, and policy-makers that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances but also improvements in human well-being. Sen initially opposed this idea, but he soon went on to help Haq develop the Index in the future. Sen was worried that it was going to be difficult to capture the full complexity of human capabilities in a single index but Haq persuaded him that only a single number would shift the attention of policy-makers from concentration on economic to human well-being.
Dimensions and calculation--New method (2010 Report onwards)
Published on 4 November 2010 (and updated on 10 June 2011), starting with the 2010 Human Development Report the HDI combines three dimensions:
A long and healthy life: Life expectancy at birth
Education index: Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling
A decent standard of living: GNI per capita (PPP US$)
In its 2010 Human Development Report, the UNDP began using a new method of calculating the HDI. The following three indices are used:
1. Life Expectancy Index (LEI) = \frac{\textrm{LE} - 20}{85-20}
2. Education Index (EI) = \frac{{\textrm{MYSI} + \textrm{EYSI}}} {2}
2.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index (MYSI) = \frac{\textrm{MYS}}{15}[7]
2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index (EYSI) = \frac{\textrm{EYS}}{18}[8]
3. Income Index (II) = \frac{\ln(\textrm{GNIpc}) - \ln(100)}{\ln(75,000) - \ln(100)}
Finally, the HDI is the geometric mean of the previous three normalized indices:
\textrm{HDI} = \sqrt[3]{\textrm{LEI}\cdot \textrm{EI} \cdot \textrm{II}}.
LE: Life expectancy at birth
MYS: Mean years of schooling (Years that a 25-year-old person or older has spent in schools)
EYS: Expected years of schooling (Years that a 5-year-old child will spend with his education in his whole life)
GNIpc: Gross national income at purchasing power parity per capita
Old method (before 2010 Report)--The HDI combined three dimensions last used in its 2009 Report:
Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity
Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.
The formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).[9] In general, to transform a raw variable, say x, into a unit-free index between 0 and 1 (which allows different indices to be added together), the following formula is used:
x\text{ index} = \frac{x - \min\left(x\right)}{\max\left(x\right)-\min\left(x\right)}
where \min\left(x\right) and \max\left(x\right) are the lowest and highest values the variable x can attain, respectively.
The Human Development Index (HDI) then represents the uniformly weighted sum with ⅓ contributed by each of the following factor indices:
Life Expectancy Index = \frac{LE - 25} {85-25}
Education Index = \frac{2} {3} \times ALI + \frac{1} {3} \times GEI
Adult Literacy Index (ALI) = \frac{ALR - 0} {100 - 0}
Gross Enrollment Index (GEI) = \frac{CGER - 0} {100 - 0}
GDP = \frac{\log\left(GDPpc\right) - \log\left(100\right)} {\log\left(40000\right) - \log\left(100\right)}
Other organizations/companies may include other factors, such as infant mortality, which produces different number of HDI.
HDI trends between 1975 and 2004
OECD
Europe not in the OECD and CIS
Latin America and the Caribbean
East Asia
Arab States
South Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
2014 report: List of countries by Human Development Index
The 2014 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Program was released on July 24, 2014, and calculates HDI values based on estimates for 2013. Below is the list of the "very high human development" countries:
The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed (up or down) relative to the ranking in 2013 report.
YOU'LL HAVE TO GO TO WIKIPEDIA TO SEE THE CHART
CUBA IS RANKED 44TH AMONGST THE 49 BEST NATIONS...
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Cuban-Style-Black-Beans
INGREDIENTS
1½ lbs. dried black beans
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh oregano
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. ground cumin
12 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sort through beans, discarding any small stones, then rinse under cold running water. Put beans, bay leaf, oregano, and 1 tbsp. of the oil into a large pot, then cover with cold water by 3". Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, adding more water as needed to keep beans covered, until beans are tender, about 2 hours.
2. Heat remaining 3 tbsp. of the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add cumin, scallions, garlic, and green peppers, and sauté, stirring often, until peppers are soft and scallions are golden, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add to beans. Continue cooking beans, stirring occasionally, for 10–15 minutes. Adjust seasonings. Remove bay leaf before serving. Serve with white rice, if you like.
INGREDIENTS
1½ lbs. dried black beans
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh oregano
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. ground cumin
12 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Sort through beans, discarding any small stones, then rinse under cold running water. Put beans, bay leaf, oregano, and 1 tbsp. of the oil into a large pot, then cover with cold water by 3". Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, adding more water as needed to keep beans covered, until beans are tender, about 2 hours.
2. Heat remaining 3 tbsp. of the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add cumin, scallions, garlic, and green peppers, and sauté, stirring often, until peppers are soft and scallions are golden, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add to beans. Continue cooking beans, stirring occasionally, for 10–15 minutes. Adjust seasonings. Remove bay leaf before serving. Serve with white rice, if you like.
I put this together about 1/2 hour after the NY Times News Alert.
OK, so we all know what's going to happen next, right? Ukraine and the USA will (sneak around / break / defy / do what they want / walk all over) this agreement, and as the war continues, the USA, the EU, NATO, and Ukraine will all blame Russia because they're not controlling the separatists. Yep, stop me if you think you've heard this one before.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/wolf-richter-something-rotten-piling-economy.html
Yves here. Given how many QE-induced distortions we have in the economy, I’m not certain the spike in inventories (in isolation) is as telling a symptom as it was last time around. But most analysts took note of how much of last quarter’s GDP figures reflected both a big increase in inventories and a negative GDP deflator, and they expect the next quarter or two to be less robust.
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street
...It’s tough out there for companies that have to deal with the over-indebted, under-employed, strung-out American consumers with fickle loyalties and finicky tastes, who have been subjected to this corporate cost-cutting for years. And so retail sales, according to the Commerce Department, dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in January. That’s on top of a 0.9% decline in December. The hitherto inconceivable is happening: folks are saving money on gas, but not everyone is immediately spending all that money! It’s so inconceivable that I warned about it and other effects of the oil price crash two months ago: “Wall Street promises a big boost to US GDP,” I wrote. “What have these folks been smoking?” But even excluding gasoline sales, retail sales were flat last month after edging down 0.2% in December. And sure, some of the savings from gasoline will be spent eventually, but there are plenty of Americans with enough money left over every month to where their spending patterns aren’t influenced by the price of gas.
But this report, an advance estimate that is subject to potentially large revisions, covers only spending at retailers and restaurants, a portion of total consumer spending, which includes healthcare and anything else that consumers pay out of their noses for. And year-over-year, retail sales actually rose 3.3%, with food services sales up 11.3%, auto sales up 10.7% thanks to prodigious subprime financing, while sales at gas stations sagged 23.5%. So from just the retail sales report, the consumer situation remains murky. But there is another gauge that is moving deeper and deeper into the red. It has been deteriorating consistently since last summer. A couple of days ago, I reported that wholesale inventories were ballooning in relationship to sales, a red flag in our era when just-in-time delivery and lean inventories have been honed into an art to minimize how much working capital and physical space gets tied up. The crucial inventories-to-sales ratio for wholesalers had reached the highest level since the financial crisis.
Now the Commerce Department released total business sales and inventories for December, which include sales and inventories at retailers, wholesalers, and manufactures – the entire channel. And it’s even worse. Combined sales by retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers, adjusted seasonally but not for price changes, dropped 0.9% from November, and was up only 0.9% from December 2013 – not even beating inflation. Retailers were able to keep their inventories stable in relationship to sales, which inched up 2.6% year-over-year. So the inventories-to-sales ratio remained at 1.43. Further up the channel, wholesalers saw sales rise only 1.43%, but their inventories stacked up, and the inventories-to-sales ratio hit 1.22, up from 1.16 a year earlier. And manufactures? That great “manufacturing renaissance” in the US? Year over year, sales declined 0.9%, but inventories rose 2.7%, and their inventories-to-sales ratio jumped to 1.34 from 1.29 a year earlier. For all three combined, the inventories-to-sales ratio rose to 1.33 in December, after climbing methodically since summer. The last time it was rising to this level was in September 2008 – the Lehman Moment – when sales up the entire channel were beginning to grind to a near halt, a terrible condition that morphed into the Great Recession. That propitious September, the inventories-to-sales reached 1.32, still a smidgen below where it is today:
Optimistic merchants and manufacturers expect sales to rise. They plan for it and order accordingly. If sales boom and draw down inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio remains lean. That’s the rosy scenario. But that hasn’t been happening recently. In our less rosy reality, sales are not keeping up with expectations, and inventories are piling up. The increase in inventories adds to GDP, and so from that point of view, they beautify the numbers. But from the business point of view, growing inventories caused by lagging sales can turn into a nightmare. And unless sales can somehow be cranked up for all businesses across the entire country to bring down these inventories, orders to suppliers will be trimmed – and that ricochets nastily around the economy with all kinds of unpleasant secondary fireworks.
“Here in Houston a number of projects have been canceled, engineers are put on ‘hold,’ and everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop,” an engineer in the energy sector wrote. “Not pushing the panic button by any means” is how the Texas banking regulator phrased it. But it’s looming in front of everyone...
Yves here. Given how many QE-induced distortions we have in the economy, I’m not certain the spike in inventories (in isolation) is as telling a symptom as it was last time around. But most analysts took note of how much of last quarter’s GDP figures reflected both a big increase in inventories and a negative GDP deflator, and they expect the next quarter or two to be less robust.
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street
...It’s tough out there for companies that have to deal with the over-indebted, under-employed, strung-out American consumers with fickle loyalties and finicky tastes, who have been subjected to this corporate cost-cutting for years. And so retail sales, according to the Commerce Department, dropped a seasonally adjusted 0.8% in January. That’s on top of a 0.9% decline in December. The hitherto inconceivable is happening: folks are saving money on gas, but not everyone is immediately spending all that money! It’s so inconceivable that I warned about it and other effects of the oil price crash two months ago: “Wall Street promises a big boost to US GDP,” I wrote. “What have these folks been smoking?” But even excluding gasoline sales, retail sales were flat last month after edging down 0.2% in December. And sure, some of the savings from gasoline will be spent eventually, but there are plenty of Americans with enough money left over every month to where their spending patterns aren’t influenced by the price of gas.
But this report, an advance estimate that is subject to potentially large revisions, covers only spending at retailers and restaurants, a portion of total consumer spending, which includes healthcare and anything else that consumers pay out of their noses for. And year-over-year, retail sales actually rose 3.3%, with food services sales up 11.3%, auto sales up 10.7% thanks to prodigious subprime financing, while sales at gas stations sagged 23.5%. So from just the retail sales report, the consumer situation remains murky. But there is another gauge that is moving deeper and deeper into the red. It has been deteriorating consistently since last summer. A couple of days ago, I reported that wholesale inventories were ballooning in relationship to sales, a red flag in our era when just-in-time delivery and lean inventories have been honed into an art to minimize how much working capital and physical space gets tied up. The crucial inventories-to-sales ratio for wholesalers had reached the highest level since the financial crisis.
Now the Commerce Department released total business sales and inventories for December, which include sales and inventories at retailers, wholesalers, and manufactures – the entire channel. And it’s even worse. Combined sales by retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers, adjusted seasonally but not for price changes, dropped 0.9% from November, and was up only 0.9% from December 2013 – not even beating inflation. Retailers were able to keep their inventories stable in relationship to sales, which inched up 2.6% year-over-year. So the inventories-to-sales ratio remained at 1.43. Further up the channel, wholesalers saw sales rise only 1.43%, but their inventories stacked up, and the inventories-to-sales ratio hit 1.22, up from 1.16 a year earlier. And manufactures? That great “manufacturing renaissance” in the US? Year over year, sales declined 0.9%, but inventories rose 2.7%, and their inventories-to-sales ratio jumped to 1.34 from 1.29 a year earlier. For all three combined, the inventories-to-sales ratio rose to 1.33 in December, after climbing methodically since summer. The last time it was rising to this level was in September 2008 – the Lehman Moment – when sales up the entire channel were beginning to grind to a near halt, a terrible condition that morphed into the Great Recession. That propitious September, the inventories-to-sales reached 1.32, still a smidgen below where it is today:
Optimistic merchants and manufacturers expect sales to rise. They plan for it and order accordingly. If sales boom and draw down inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio remains lean. That’s the rosy scenario. But that hasn’t been happening recently. In our less rosy reality, sales are not keeping up with expectations, and inventories are piling up. The increase in inventories adds to GDP, and so from that point of view, they beautify the numbers. But from the business point of view, growing inventories caused by lagging sales can turn into a nightmare. And unless sales can somehow be cranked up for all businesses across the entire country to bring down these inventories, orders to suppliers will be trimmed – and that ricochets nastily around the economy with all kinds of unpleasant secondary fireworks.
“Here in Houston a number of projects have been canceled, engineers are put on ‘hold,’ and everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop,” an engineer in the energy sector wrote. “Not pushing the panic button by any means” is how the Texas banking regulator phrased it. But it’s looming in front of everyone...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40966.htm
As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has observed, the payroll jobs reports no longer make any logical or statistical sense. Ask yourself, do you believe that retailers responded to the very disappointing Christmas season by rushing out in January to hire 46,000 more retail clerks? Perhaps those 46,000 retail jobs is the BLS telling us that they have to come up with new jobs to report whether or not there are any.
As we have reported on a number of occasions, whenever the price of gold in the futures market starts to rise, massive uncovered shorts are suddenly dumped on the market. As the shorts dramatically increase the supply of future contracts all at once, the supply overwhelms demand, and the price of gold is driven down despite the fact that the demand for gold in the physical market is strong. (Remember, the price of gold is determined in the futures market in which contracts are largely settled in cash and seldom in gold. The physical market is where gold bullion is purchased, not paper claims on gold for speculation.) Last Friday the attack on gold was coordinated with the announcement of the suspicious jobs report. The price of gold was hit hard with an avalanche of uncovered gold futures contracts dumped at the same time that the U.S. Government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released what can only be described as an incorrect employment report. The avalanche of paper contracts that were dumped onto the Comex (both the trading floor and electronic trading computer system) took the price of gold down $39 in three hours, with most of the price hit occurring in the first 40 minutes after the jobs report was released.
The volume of contracts that traded after 8:00 a.m. on the Comex was unusually high for a Friday, running about 60% above Thursday’s volume for the same time period. Such departures without cause from normal trading patterns are indicative of market manipulation, and Friday’s price smash capped a week in which the price of gold was taken lower every day at 8:30 a.m. after the release of economic reports, most of which reflected a deteriorating condition of the U.S. economy.
Gold is a refuge in times of uncertainty. With yen, dollars, and euros all being created at a faster rate than goods and services are being produced, with both stock and bond prices at bubble levels, gold is definitely an attractive refuge. Confidence in gold would pull money out of the rigged markets for financial instruments and make it more difficult to maintain the appearance that all is well. To attack gold simultaneously with issuing a happy jobs report doubles the encouragement to remain invested in financial paper and to continue to hold the over-printed currencies. The expectation is that more money will be printed. The prices of troubled sovereign debt have been bid unrealistically high because of expectations that quantitative easing by the European Central Bank will result in central bank purchases of the troubled sovereign debt. In the US the 100 percent and more than 100 percent auto loans have been securitized and sold as investments. Borrowers whose trade-in value is less than their remaining loan can borrow more than the purchase price of the new car in order to pay off the old car loan. The lenders made their money on loan fees, but as defaults rise the securitized loans and associated derivatives will likely require a bailout like the securitized mortgages. Anyone looking at these prospects is tempted by gold, but a rising gold price could bring down the fiat currencies and, thus, must be prevented.
In other words, those who have rigged the system know that it is a house of cards.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has observed, the payroll jobs reports no longer make any logical or statistical sense. Ask yourself, do you believe that retailers responded to the very disappointing Christmas season by rushing out in January to hire 46,000 more retail clerks? Perhaps those 46,000 retail jobs is the BLS telling us that they have to come up with new jobs to report whether or not there are any.
As we have reported on a number of occasions, whenever the price of gold in the futures market starts to rise, massive uncovered shorts are suddenly dumped on the market. As the shorts dramatically increase the supply of future contracts all at once, the supply overwhelms demand, and the price of gold is driven down despite the fact that the demand for gold in the physical market is strong. (Remember, the price of gold is determined in the futures market in which contracts are largely settled in cash and seldom in gold. The physical market is where gold bullion is purchased, not paper claims on gold for speculation.) Last Friday the attack on gold was coordinated with the announcement of the suspicious jobs report. The price of gold was hit hard with an avalanche of uncovered gold futures contracts dumped at the same time that the U.S. Government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released what can only be described as an incorrect employment report. The avalanche of paper contracts that were dumped onto the Comex (both the trading floor and electronic trading computer system) took the price of gold down $39 in three hours, with most of the price hit occurring in the first 40 minutes after the jobs report was released.
The volume of contracts that traded after 8:00 a.m. on the Comex was unusually high for a Friday, running about 60% above Thursday’s volume for the same time period. Such departures without cause from normal trading patterns are indicative of market manipulation, and Friday’s price smash capped a week in which the price of gold was taken lower every day at 8:30 a.m. after the release of economic reports, most of which reflected a deteriorating condition of the U.S. economy.
Gold is a refuge in times of uncertainty. With yen, dollars, and euros all being created at a faster rate than goods and services are being produced, with both stock and bond prices at bubble levels, gold is definitely an attractive refuge. Confidence in gold would pull money out of the rigged markets for financial instruments and make it more difficult to maintain the appearance that all is well. To attack gold simultaneously with issuing a happy jobs report doubles the encouragement to remain invested in financial paper and to continue to hold the over-printed currencies. The expectation is that more money will be printed. The prices of troubled sovereign debt have been bid unrealistically high because of expectations that quantitative easing by the European Central Bank will result in central bank purchases of the troubled sovereign debt. In the US the 100 percent and more than 100 percent auto loans have been securitized and sold as investments. Borrowers whose trade-in value is less than their remaining loan can borrow more than the purchase price of the new car in order to pay off the old car loan. The lenders made their money on loan fees, but as defaults rise the securitized loans and associated derivatives will likely require a bailout like the securitized mortgages. Anyone looking at these prospects is tempted by gold, but a rising gold price could bring down the fiat currencies and, thus, must be prevented.
In other words, those who have rigged the system know that it is a house of cards.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-13/greece-is-cutting-line-for-debt-relief
As the European Union and Greece wrangle over the future of the latter's bailout, it's useful to put the Greek demands for debt relief in perspective. The far-left government of Alexis Tsipras says it must cut the country's debt to restore "dignity" to impoverished Greeks. But there are poorer nations in the EU whose debt burdens are heavier than Greece's: according to Tsipras's logic, those countries' dignity is under far greater threat than Greece's. Rather than give Greece special treatment, the EU should be encouraging it to follow the responsible example set by its poorer neighbors.
There are plenty of countries in Europe with debt problems. In 2014, Greece paid 4.3 percent of its gross domestic product to service its debt. That’s a smaller percentage than paid by Portugal and Italy (on this chart of interest payments on government debt as a share of GDP, Greece is denoted by the acronym EL, Portugal is PT and Italy is IT):
In 2012 -- the latest year for which such data are available from Eurostat -- Greece had a per capita disposable income (taking into account purchasing power parity) of 15,172 euros ($17,209 at the current exchange rate). That puts it in the same economic weight class as Portugal, which had an average income of 15,824 euros. But Portugal managed to exit its own bailout in May 2014 without demanding debt relief the way Greece is doing now.
Neither have far poorer countries that are newer arrivals in the EU. According to World Bank data, Hungary's ratio of debt payments to exports reached 97.4 percent and Romania's 39.7 percent in 2013 -- far in excess of Greece's ratio of 26 percent. They also have significantly lower average disposable income. Meanwhile, if Greece defaults on its obligations to Europe, it force losses on several countries poorer than itself, including Latvia, Slovakia and Estonia, the poorest of the nations that took part in the Greek bailout. (It guaranteed 390 million euros worth of the loans to the European Financial Stability Facility that funded Greece.)
As the European Union and Greece wrangle over the future of the latter's bailout, it's useful to put the Greek demands for debt relief in perspective. The far-left government of Alexis Tsipras says it must cut the country's debt to restore "dignity" to impoverished Greeks. But there are poorer nations in the EU whose debt burdens are heavier than Greece's: according to Tsipras's logic, those countries' dignity is under far greater threat than Greece's. Rather than give Greece special treatment, the EU should be encouraging it to follow the responsible example set by its poorer neighbors.
There are plenty of countries in Europe with debt problems. In 2014, Greece paid 4.3 percent of its gross domestic product to service its debt. That’s a smaller percentage than paid by Portugal and Italy (on this chart of interest payments on government debt as a share of GDP, Greece is denoted by the acronym EL, Portugal is PT and Italy is IT):
In 2012 -- the latest year for which such data are available from Eurostat -- Greece had a per capita disposable income (taking into account purchasing power parity) of 15,172 euros ($17,209 at the current exchange rate). That puts it in the same economic weight class as Portugal, which had an average income of 15,824 euros. But Portugal managed to exit its own bailout in May 2014 without demanding debt relief the way Greece is doing now.
Neither have far poorer countries that are newer arrivals in the EU. According to World Bank data, Hungary's ratio of debt payments to exports reached 97.4 percent and Romania's 39.7 percent in 2013 -- far in excess of Greece's ratio of 26 percent. They also have significantly lower average disposable income. Meanwhile, if Greece defaults on its obligations to Europe, it force losses on several countries poorer than itself, including Latvia, Slovakia and Estonia, the poorest of the nations that took part in the Greek bailout. (It guaranteed 390 million euros worth of the loans to the European Financial Stability Facility that funded Greece.)
