All is Money

This is the arctic: home to a small specialized economic zone that doesn’t technically belong to any established nation on earth.

The North Pole is an interesting economic case study, primarily because of its surprisingly incredible economy! ... So put on your jacket and stay warm for today's episode as we explore the economy of The North Pole!

This is China: the second-largest economy in the world, home to the largest population in the world, and the most aggressive economic expansion in modern history.

Most people watching this episode now would have seen China go from a collection of mostly peasant farmers into the economic powerhouse it is today within their lifetimes.

The economic development of China has amongst other things also contributed heavily to the massive drop in absolute global poverty we have seen today.

The economy of the United Kingdom is really a tale of two cities, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times, it is an economy with the highest levels of foreign investment per capita in the world and it is an economy with a major poverty crisis. It's an economy that's home to the second-largest financial center in the world and yet its entire economy is smaller than that of California.

In this episode, let's explore why these financial institutions decide to call London home.

This is Russia: the largest country on the planet by pure landmass. The country is the center of many controversies that have today made it a bit of a boogeyman in the international community.

It is enormous military power with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world even beating out the United States which comes as a hangover from when the nation was the centerpiece of the Soviet Union.

But we are not here to look at Russian military assets or speculate about the wild conspiracies that Vladimir Putin is inevitably plotting in the Kremlin as we speak. We are not even here to look at the Soviet Union that one deserves an episode all its own, no we are here to explore modern-day Russia, which is an economy that really is just not that impressive.

Russia is hugely powerful by virtue of its military and political influence but its economy is really nothing to be proud of. Its current GDP of around 1.7 trillion USD is certainly nothing to be ignored, it puts it in line with countries like Canada or Brazil but it does not put it in line with the world powers like China or the USA which is normally compared too.

The United States became the world's largest economy in the early 20th century and though massive industrial growth and technical innovation it has held that lead for over 100 years.

The world superpowers that came before it was most notably colonial empires, with the France Britain and the Netherlands all extracting a vast majority of their wealth from foreign colonies that they used to mine natural resources or grow tea and spices to bring back home.

Incidentally, the United States was once one of these colonies, but it had a bit of a rebellious streak and claimed independence to go an to become a majorly powerful nation in its own right.

The nation was born with the memories of empire and what it meant to be a colony, so it ultimately walked a different path to prosperity. In this episode, part two of a serious on the economy of the United States we will look at America’s take on its own global empire.

The Netherlands, a fine country of flowers, windmills, and loose regulations around the finer things in life. This country is in many ways like a lot of very developed European economies we have explored earlier on the channel, very high living standards, good social mobility a strong economy and healthy inequality but the Netherlands hides a bit of a secret behind its lovely flowerful smile, it is one of the largest tax havens in the world.

But how does this make any sense? The Netherlands has a high-income tax rate of over 50% for top earners and a corporate tax rate of 25%. And there are not even particularly strict laws around things like banking privacy (like there are in countries like Switzerland) ... so if all of this is making the Netherlands sound like a pretty terrible tax haven all in all, why is it so popular?

Q&A on Bernie Sanders Video

The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest and most liquid securities market.

It's where many of world's largest companies list their shares to be traded amongst millions of investors worldwide; ranging from small individual investors to major financial institutions and governments.

But the NYSE isn't the only exchange. In fact, there are hundreds of exchanges around the world that also work to raise capital for corporations.

And while you're probably familiar with the classic imagery of loud bombastic traders in bright uniforms when you think of stock exchanges, the reality is quite different.

The age of the automated trading machines is upon us and most trades executed today aren't coming from humans but rather algorithmic trading machines.

These computer algorithms (or "algos") come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But the most controversial of all is known as "high-frequency trading" or "HFT".

The United States of America, the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet by a very respectable margin. The sheer scale of the united states wealth and influence is really really hard to fathom, even for macro-economists, sure there are GDP figures, trade balances and labor force figures, but they are best for telling the story of a normal national economy, and the United States are far from that, its consumer retail sector is bigger than all but 9 of the largest national economies in the world, California, one of its states has a bigger GDP figure than the united kingdom and the US has fifty states.

The U.S. economy goes beyond this though, it is the foundation for the world economy in the 20th and 21st centuries, and this influence isn’t caused by something so old fashioned as an empire, but rather industry. Today US companies can be seen dominating industries in economies all over the world, and at the same time, foreign companies from Europe and Asia fight endlessly to break into the US market, the largest and most influential consumer market in the world.

The U.S. economy is too large with too many facets to explore in a single episode, so this will be made as a video series but for now, in this episode, I want to explore how the United States of America got to where it is today.

Global warming is something that threatens to impact us all: both environmentally (with the loss of natural marvels such as the great barrier reef) and economically.

But humans aren't actually contributing as significantly as you may think to global warming.

In fact, the vast majority of the world's population lives a relatively low-carbon emission lifestyle compared to "the developed world".

Yet, ironically, the world's poorest citizens are the ones most likely to be impacted by the potential byproducts of a warmer planet.

In this episode, let's explore the economic impacts of climate change – both in terms of its potential consequences and the feasibility of available solutions.