China 2nd Largest Economy

That's because you have no idea how our government works.

A long long long time ago yes our states were fairly autonomous and were practicallly different countries. Hell a few of them decided to completely break off... see how well that went ;). But it's been awhile since it's been that way

I swear Jaerik makes these threads for the lulz.

According to the other one he is high on OTC meds

Ok, so what differences do you see between a state and a country?

Oh yeah? Is it worth reading?

Population

Idk thought I saw you in it. It's the bela one

General laws and prosecution between them, governement taxes, military etc.

Turns out alot countries have regions with slightly varying laws/rules, dialects etc that are fairly comparable to our states.

The EU can be counted as a combined economic zone because they do not have individual fiscal policy rights and share a currency. That is why Greece defaulting on its debt was a panic for the entire continent. It would be like Alabama declaring bankruptcy: every other state would be compelled to bail it out.

Similarly, you do not require a passport to travel amongst countries in the European Union, which makes them closer to states in that regard as well.

And also similarly, Poland cannot attack someone without the rest of the EU attacking them as well. This makes the "country" distinction fairly arbitrary. You couldn't say "We were bombed by Poland" because by necessity, every other country in Europe would be bombing us at the same time.

The "it takes 27 countries to equal one of ours" is an irrelevant designation. Total population of the combined economic zone is a valid comparison, and there it's roughly equal.

(Cuba is not a part of the US in any way, incidentally. You guys are probably thinking Puerto Rico.)

Similarly, "GDP per capita" (i.e. economic strength divided by population) is an important number, and the US has sadly not scored above 6th in the world or so on that figure for well over a decade.

"Jaerik; Even when he's trippin' balls, he's still smarter than you."

I still disagree!!!

Also never said you couldn't count it just that it fairly unfair.

And most large countries panic when any other large country does bad. Everyones economies are intertwined fairly closely nowadays.

And the whole one attacks another thing is old. It's a decent part of how the World Wars happened. Gogo everyone agreeing to help each other.

There might be a few similarities but there are a ***ton of differences

With the way the government is keeping up with their control over Capitalism, China would overtake US in 2015
Tell that to Greece.

I don't understand. New York has to have the same laws as Arizona? You can be prosecuted in New York for a crime you commited in Arizona? Individual states have no authority on taxation, only the federal state?
Agrumentative but do you see my point?

I agree a lot of countries do have differing laws and they are comparable to the states of the USA. It's because there is no difference between a country and a state. Just because the USA has a federal model where an elected representative acts as one voice for all the states the he (maybe she) has authority over doesn't detract from the fact that the USA is a collective of countries that have combined together over time to form the USA in exactly the same way the the EU has had a couple of countries that have agreed federal laws between them and extradition treaties between them.

I laughed soooo freaking hard. Reading his posts in the other thread you can tell he still has some sanity left.

Watch him have a few more threads up before the day is out.

There are 2 types of laws in the US. State law and Federal law.

See, if you break a state law, you get arrested in that state and taken to court and tried under that state's law. If you run outside of the state and become a fugitive, then you have broken a federal law and get tried under the state law you broke that law in, plus tried in federal court and get to spend some time in "butt-*** prison." Not "white collar prison," but "butt-*** prison."

OMG kitten doing pushups!!11!

Most of them yes. Does all of the UK have exactly the same laws? Does any country? I can't speak for every country but no most don't. And yes you can get prosecuted for a crime you commited in one states. Awhile back you could change states but now you gotta go to mexico. Not sure where you going with that but yes we have differing state taxes as well as federal ones. We also have differing sales taxes within a state. Pretty sure alot of other countries do that too.

By that logic each of the "countries" of the EU is in fact a collection of even more "countries"

I agree.

I think Jaerik is high.

He is. OTC Cold Meds, check the second page of the Bella thread.

I know someone that got arrested after buying 5 bottles of cough medicine

He is going to wake up with a sore ***, a box of tissues, and a bat laying next to his head tomorrow.

...and he would never know why.....

Having a cold is a crime, y'know..

Wow how come?

Something about turning cough medicines into some sort of meth drug or something, I heard about that too.

I loves my kitty-cat ^^

Now you're getting it.

He was doin' fitty-five in a fitty-fo.

then break it down in terms of overall population. US population is roughly 307 million people, whereas the EU population is roughly 831.4 million. So breaking it down in terms of sheer numbers then yes it takes nearly three times the amount of ppl from EU to match or now barely surpass americas economy

Well abuse of cough medicine is an issue and he was at a military super market so they are supposed to call stuff like that in...

Also can't you make hard drugs from it?