this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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California is inflated by Silicon Valley stuff. Maybe left-over Hollywood prestige, as well.
Japan isn't known for it's awesome economy, but it's surprising world city Tokyo is still doing worse than all of Canada including the backwaters.
It's not surprising because GDP does not reflect quality of life in any form whatsoever. GDP is not a measure of wealth it's a measure of feverish, extractive, mindless and destructive activity.
Doing Worse is subjective.
Higher GDP ≠ Doing Better.
The US has some of the highest GDP per capita on earth but that doesn’t mean it (or its economy, if you don’t define economy just as stock market go brrr) is doing well.
As in, doing worse economically. In this context, where that's clear, it seems like the wording holds up.
GDP measures actual trade more than the stock market. That being said, yes, it's a litmus test, albeit a decently well supported one. The main places it breaks down, in terms of predicting people's lifestyles, is where there's major banking hubs (Singapore, Seychelles, Ireland for a while).
California also offers an agricultural powerhouse of productivity, oceanfront tourism, and ongoing techbro circle jerks.
Oh right, a lot of produce that makes it up here is from California, although we've noticeably weaned off of it over the course of the trade war.
I did mention the techbros. If the AI bubble pops and geopolitics breaks the walled garden monopolies it might end up a lot closer to Canada.
I wonder if you take out fossil fuel and logging out of Canada’s GDP if it still would be higher than Tokyo’s. Not much logging and oil drilling going on in Tokyo I reckon.
Yes, it's a resource-based economy. Agriculture and mining are also huge. They're all kind of hard to get at resources, though, so it's not like the Persian Gulf, where there's no expenses and it's a money printer. Basically, outside of certain parts of Ontario, people work in that instead of in factories. (And forestry in particular is being imploded by the US, right now)
Tokyo should, in theory, have all kinds of highly skilled professionals, who earn more than whatever logging grunt. But, the gap is still like 150%.
Add mining too. We export a lot of raw minerals