World Economy from 1st Century to 21st Century

[godsavetheworld]

This is really cool.

Follow this link, and take a look at the history of the world economy since 1 BC. Its amazing how much wealth Mughal emperors earned. Clearly gives a glimpse of the tales of prosperity Columbus heard, that made him to look for India.

Indian subcontinent controlled 60% of the worlds wealth. Rest was controlled by Chinese+rest of the world.

World Economy from 1st Century to 21st Century

 

[white_pawn]

And definately the wealth will come back to its origin that is south asia.

 

[Hyde]

The Asia (South Asia and Middle East) has always been the centre of the economy and blessed with Natural and all other resources

The Westerner try their best to loot up everything but after few decades it becomes the centre of the economy again

 

[dabong1]

Was Benglal not the richest part?

 

[godsavetheworld]

Dunno how many of you noticed, but despite Britishers ransacking Indian economy, India was still among the worlds top 10 in 1950. Partially due to 2nd world war, and partially due to the wealth that lies in India.

 

[muse]

A superpower no longer
Gulfnews: A superpower no longer

04/11/2009 10:54 PM | By Walter Rodgers, Christian Science Monitor



Two American icons, General Electric and Berkshire Hathaway, lost their triple-A credit ratings. Then China, America's largest creditor, called for a new global currency to replace the dollar just weeks after it demanded Washington guarantee the safety of Beijing's nearly $1 trillion (Dh3.67 trillion) debt holdings. And that was just in March.

These events are the latest warnings that our world is changing far more rapidly and profoundly than we - or our politicians - will admit. America's own triple-A rating, its superpower status, is being downgraded as rapidly as its economy.

President Barack Obama's recent acknowledgement that the US is not winning in Afghanistan is but the most obvious recognition of this jarring new reality. What was the president telling Americans? As Milton Bearden, a former top CIA analyst on Afghanistan, recently put it, "If you aren't winning, you're losing".

The global landscape is littered with evidence that America's superpower status is fraying. Nuclear-armed Pakistan - arguably the world's most dangerous country - is falling apart, despite billions in US aid and support. In Iraq, despite efforts in Washington to make 'the surge' appear to be a stunning US victory, analysts most familiar with the region have already declared Iran the strategic winner of the Bush administration's war against Saddam Hussain. The Iraq war has greatly empowered Iran, nurturing a new regional superpower that now seems likely to be the major architect of the new Iraq.

Sadly, what was forgotten amid the Bush-era hubris was that America's edge always has been as much moral and economic as military. Officially sanctioned torture, the Abu Ghraib scandal, US invasion of a sovereign country without provocation, along with foolishly allowing extremists to successfully portray the US as the enemy of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, shattered whatever moral edge America enjoyed before 2003.

Washington's uncritical support of Israel at the expense of Palestinians is perceived by much of the world as egregiously hypocritical. Consequently, America's collision course with Islam may be irreversible. Muslims believe Islam never lost the moral high ground - and they won't readily relinquish it for Western secularism.

Even politically conservative journals such as The National Interest recognise something has gone wrong. In a recent issue, Robert Pape opined: "The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-accounts balance, and other economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today's world... If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration's years as the death knell of American hegemony."

Now, as a massive retrenchment of the US economy is under way, it is time to shake the mental shackles of the superpower legacy and embrace a more peripheralist agenda. That need not mean isolationism or retreat. It would still require maintaining substantial armed forces with a qualitative edge, but using them only when there is an affordable and persuasive American national interest. Iraq never fitted that description.

The price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wars is in the trillions. Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military commentator, prophetically observed 2,500 years ago, "[W]hen the army marches abroad, the treasury will be emptied at home".

It remains a lingering American myth that US troops and warships can go anywhere and pay any price. Not so. The modern Chinese have discovered a better way. The Washington Post reports that the Chinese went on a shopping spree recently, taking advantage of fire-sale prices to lock up global supplies of oil, minerals, and other strategic resources for their economy. That amounts to a major economic conquest - without using a single soldier. By contrast, American efforts to secure oil have looked clumsy.

It took years for the US to recover its moral authority after Vietnam. It will be an even harder comeback this time.

Walter Rodgers is a former senior international correspondent for CNN.

 

[TopCat]

Maan, I should had this link before, so that I could bash some bad aaasss ghoras...

 

[DarkStar]

Thanks for the post, god save the world.

Notice how the British Isles, starting from scratch, gradually increased their share of world gdp, almost directly proportionate to the loss of India's share...

You can notice this trend from the 1700-1820-1870-1913 time scales...

What more evidence is needed, that the British hugely enriched themselves from their occupation of India, at the direct expense of INdia?...that is, our Subcontinent of South Asia. Bastards!

 

[TopCat]

British waged the whole American war with the Indian money you know... Every Americans know it....
Sometimes I feel like slapping some western journalist who advocates that British made Indian civilized...

 

[paritosh]

yeah bengal used to be the center of the economic cycle of the subcontinent...india(subcontinent used to be called 'sone ki chidiya'...we all have heard that right?
i cant imagine the power that the sub-continent once enjoyed...the sheer size of india+pakistan+BD...as big as china!
with the way the power is shifting away from the west...i think history might repeat itself..(in terms of the individual countries of the sub-cont getting richer)

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

Was Benglal not the richest part?

I don't remember the period, but I think it was in 1857 when the British officially took Dilli, India's tax collection came to ~45 crore rupees, out of which 23 crores were from Hyderabad alone, making it the richest region. No wonder the Nizam wanted to keep his state independant from Bhaarat in 1947, butwas overrun by Bhaarat's army.

India's GDP actually dropped pretty sharply during the British years. At least the part re-investing inside the country, and thus running the economy, became a small proportion of that which was siphoned off to the UK. They also dumped their export into it, and stifled off the local industry that offered competition, e.g. Punjab's cotton cloth to which Manchestor's factories couldn't come close in quality and Bengal's fine cloth, a sari of which could fold into a matchbox. How else is it possible that Punjab's cotton and wheat production decreased in the British era than what it had been under the Mughals inspite of all thw canal systems being built.

Yes the colonials looted us, but they also divided us. Ninety years of British rule saw more Hindi-Muslim bloodshed than 1131 years (726-1857) of (partial or whole) Muslim rule, and the scars live still today.

 

[muse]

The global landscape is littered with evidence that America's superpower status is fraying. Nuclear-armed Pakistan - arguably the world's most dangerous country - is falling apart, despite billions in US aid and support. In Iraq, despite efforts in Washington to make 'the surge' appear to be a stunning US victory, analysts most familiar with the region have already declared Iran the strategic winner of the Bush administration's war against Saddam Hussain. The Iraq war has greatly empowered Iran, nurturing a new regional superpower that now seems likely to be the major architect of the new Iraq.

Sadly, what was forgotten amid the Bush-era hubris was that America's edge always has been as much moral and economic as military. Officially sanctioned torture, the Abu Ghraib scandal, US invasion of a sovereign country without provocation, along with foolishly allowing extremists to successfully portray the US as the enemy of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, shattered whatever moral edge America enjoyed before 2003.

Washington's uncritical support of Israel at the expense of Palestinians is perceived by much of the world as egregiously hypocritical. Consequently, America's collision course with Islam may be irreversible. Muslims believe Islam never lost the moral high ground - and they won't readily relinquish it for Western secularism.

Even politically conservative journals such as The National Interest recognise something has gone wrong. In a recent issue, Robert Pape opined: "The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-accounts balance, and other economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today's world... If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration's years as the death knell of American hegemony."

Now, as a massive retrenchment of the US economy is under way, it is time to shake the mental shackles of the superpower legacy and embrace a more peripheralist agenda. That need not mean isolationism or retreat. It would still require maintaining substantial armed forces with a qualitative edge, but using them only when there is an affordable and persuasive American national interest

Some here have been pointing to this outcome for some time but people were not ready to listen - a new and improved America is in the best interest of the American but also the world -- a peripheralist policy? lets hope not - the financial crisis is not uniform and is not a stimulus problem in the US and Europe, though it is exactly that in the rest of the world - and US must get that one right if nothing else.

 

[TruthSeeker]

As I look at my friends and neighbors, I see that the primary problem is living beyond their means. This is not a problem for me personally, I have no debt, not even a mortgage on my house. But for most of my fellow Americans, they have lived "high on the hog" on borrowed money. This crisis is causing a change in behavior. Don't gloat too soon. Much of what Americans bought on their borrowed money, they bought from China and the rest of the developing world. If, and I believe it is happening now, my neighbors retrench, it will cause other economies to have to develop internal demand and to not depend on the US market for their growth. You are not as isolated from the difficulties of the US as you might think.

 

[muse]

Gloating is not what at least I had in mind - rather if you review Threads such as "Brave New World" and "meltdown" and "Once in America" - you will note warning, and signs of what was coming.

But moving on to your point about living beyond their means -- I was recently hearing a lecture by a econmist named Wolf who lectures at the Univertsity of Massachusettes - he had a interesting take on this feature - his point was that real wages for ordinary Americans did not keep pace with ever increasing productivity and that this in conjunction with the availablity of low interest rates after the high tech bubble burst, captured a pent up demand for capital and consumption and that government promoted this behaviour.

A U.S economy that is dysfunctional will and has lead to a global disaster, indeed we may be looking at a crisis so deep that an entirely new ratioanle, vocabulary and ethical framework will have to be developed - consider the implications.

 

[TruthSeeker]

A U.S economy that is dysfunctional will and has lead to a global disaster, indeed we may be looking at a crisis so deep that an entirely new ratioanle, vocabulary and ethical framework will have to be developed - consider the implications.

The deep crisis is, unfortunately, continuing with the budget proposals of the Obama Administration. The current outlook by our Congressional Budget Office is that the US Government would spend ~ 23-24% of the GDP while receiving tax revenuse of only~ 19% of GDP over the next decade. Thus the current proposals of the Obama team would have US debt increasing roughly 4-5% of GDP per year for the next ten years. If nothing is changed, the US outstanding debt would grow from 42% of current GDP to 82% of GDP in a decade. This level of US debt is not possible to fund. It would suck up all the available free capital in the world. So something has to give. I think US taxes will have to rise to bring our budget into near balance. This, of course, will slow worldwide economic growth, but I think it is unavoidable.