[sbrthrds]

An Economy Bigger than Russia, Brazil, Canada, India or Spain Is About to Default

Washington’s Blog
July 2, 2009

An economy bigger than Russia, Brazil, Canada, India or Spain is in imminent risk of defaulting on its debts.

Which nation am I talking about?

Not a country . . . but the state of California.

California’s GDP was around $1.812 trillion in 2007.

According to the International Monetary Fund, that is bigger than the 2008 GDP of every country in the world except the US, Japan, China, Germany, France, UK and Italy .

Given that California has more people than any other state in the US, and some of the largest agricultural, manufacturing, high-tech and defense sectors in the nation, you would think that helping California would be important.

And yet – instead of helping California – the federal government is giving aid to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the other financial giants who helped to cause the financial crisis, and to Israel and other foreign countries.

Does that make any sense?

Note: Depending on which source is cited (CIA World Factbook, World Bank, or IMF), California ranks somewhere between 7th and 10th in world GDP.

Technically, California’s economic measure is not GDP, as that is a national measure. The correct term is “Gross State Product”.