More like 12.9 Trillion USD

Ah yes, the great misconceptions of humanity, or why life is different across the great pond.

Why do Americans have to use feet and not meters, why do they use . instead of , and vice versa in numbers?

because we like to make things complicated for you specifically. and to make you ask questions. :D

You do? I think people need to loosen up a bit.

And yes it is hilarious.

See, DirtyP was right and then this American comes in and corrects him only because he (the American) is ignorant of international standards for numbers.

It is so very sad.

To be honest this was somewhat bound to happen considering we've been unable to cooperate financially so far. You can't have a common currency without common financial politics. What we need is a finance minister on a European or at least a Euro-Zone level who is elected by the european parliament.

So far countries could use the euro to give themselves competitive advantages in certain areas. The european / eurozone economy is acting as one single market but the governments aren't willing to give up a bit of their power. That breaks an otherwise working mechanism. What we truly need is common taxes on a euro-zone level. These taxes could later be allocated back to the countries. And damn yes, the western european countries will have to pay a bit more in absolute numbers to support the rise of eastern Europe but longterm this is going to help the whole Union.

Some people still claim the Euro or the common market makes us weaker but this is not true. It is pretty much shown in every poll that those who claim the Euro / common market weakens us are often the ones who know the least about how the EU works. Further integration would help nations like France and Greece to profit from the huge exports of Germany and help export-oriented nations to increase their european "exports" even more.

I know everyone takes peace for granted these days in Europe but I'm really worried about a rise of eurosceptism in a lot of European countries (including the german chancellor who is acting like she was in a position to tell the greeks what to do... luckily the government is polling extremely low right now so she might wake up at some point).

Statistics (often wrong statistics) aren't enough to explain why European integration is so beneficial to everyone. With issues like global warming, terrorism, nuclear weapons and an ever-increasing rise of globalization there is no way we can solve future problems on a national level. And there is no reason Europeans should be scared of each other when it comes to politics.

But hey, it's not like politicians were willing to give up their power...

I think the problem was actually that, in the original post, the European numbers were listed with commas, while the others were listed with points. Seeing as it was all in the same sentence, that gives the impression that the "," in the European countries was to symbolise thousands, while the "." in the US, was to symbolise fractions of billions.

You can use "," or "." to symbolise thousands, but never use both in the same post.

"USA: 12.307 billion USD"
"Germany: 1,700 billion EUR
France: 1,489 billion EUR "

You see the issue there? It's not about which way is the "correct" way of doing it (because it varies depending on location), the problem was the lack of consistency.

Haha

I copy / paste the numbers from a thread I made on another German forum and translated the text and the numbers. I forgot to do it with the not-european countries. Sorry.

Anyway, the situation is fucked up.

@spagoodle

The growth or the income of most nations is declining while the expenses of the countries are increasing. And as if this is not scary enough, the countries are already sitting on HUGE debts.

Every state has a debt. Not a small one, a huge one. And could you give me an example of one nation that is actually decreasing the debts right now? Is there on state (with industrial standards) that earns more money than it spends? Think about it, every nation is getting deeper and deeper in the reds. When our welfare is based on 30 trillion USD debt (only USA, Japan, Europe!) and it is growing every day, you have to be concerned. There might come this one day when someone wants to get his money back. I don't want to be a prophet of doom, but the situation we are in is very crucial.

And with the upcoming problems like global warming ahead, I lose my optimism.

"Is there on state (with industrial standards) that earns more money than it spends?"

China

Some day they will own us all.

JHawkNH: Norway. No debt and a 500 billion dollar oil fund.