This mapping surprised me:
"Tennessee – Saudi Arabia (GDP #25 at $286 billion)"
I probably magnify the oil economy in my mind. You hear about the vast wealth, the oil sheiks, the buying of US assets, etc. Either my intuition on relative economies is very off (likely)... or GDP doesn't cover some things that impact our perception. Wonder how that map would look if we used GDP per capita.
Re: vast wealth, just want to point out that there is a lot of poverty in Saudi Arabia that westerners don't realise, and that unemployment is estimated to be at 20% or so.
Maybe I should clarify... I meant that most of the oil income in SA is concentrated in the monarchy. I guess, as another comment pointed out, that oil income is only like 45% of GDP, but I still maintain that national income is much more concentrated in SA than it is in Tennessee, leading to the perception of untold riches of some and the reality of poverty for many. Tennessee doesn't have such concentration of wealth was my point.
I probably magnify the oil economy in my mind. You hear about the vast wealth, the oil sheiks, the buying of US assets, etc. Either my intuition on relative economies is very off (likely)... or GDP doesn't cover some things that impact our perception. Wonder how that map would look if we used GDP per capita.