It still only sounds like you are somehow puzzled by the end difference in bulk if one part decides to spend a fixed in$ budget on 30 cans of cheap tuna while another part chooses to spend the same money on 10 cans of a fancy brand. You can’t compare things like that, it’s apples and oranges. PPP is based on fully comparable goods and services or it would be absolutely pointless.

A Su-27 is cheaper than a Typhoon in in$, no matter where it is made and who buys it. Or as swerve put it, an Emgrand vs. a Ferrari. That fact doesn’t reflect any discrepancies in purchasing power.

Well I disagree with your cheap tuna vs expensive tuna analogy. It’s false to restrict adjustments to only analyse foreign brands being made in China with marginal price adjustment for the local market, just as it’s false to make brand quality assumptions. If a US brand starts selling its stuff in China for what it actually costs to make there, pretty soon nobody will buy it in the US anymore. Arguably, there isn’t actually any competition in many of those cases because people are buying a brand for the sake of having that brand, so working out PPP based on the cost of a pair of Levis is nonsense. Most of these ‘adjusted’ figures are pure BS. E.g. inflation in the US measured using 1980s metrics is about 8-10%, whereas with modern metrics it’s 1.5%. So you can completely skew any figure you like using methods devised by a given School of BS.

Anyway, back on topic.

Hence the PPP method, that takes those very differences into account as has been stated before. The “dollar” is still used in this context, but in the form of the hypothetical/fictional “Geary–Khamis dollar”, more commonly called “international dollar”, which is adjusted to represent actual purchasing power in a given country and not how the USD or any other specific real currency would fare there.

The issue however is that you need to conduct rather extensive price surveys of goods and services and what not, and the last major price survey dates back to 2005 (by the International Comparison Program/ICP) so current PPP figures are undoubtedly a tad off. The recent World Bank data does however utilize their own more recent 2008 survey, but the next major ICP update comes this December and it will make a serious imprint of the 2014 International Monetary Fund data (due for release in April) that is then used by the CIA etc.

PPP figures are way off, just as inflation figures are way off too. E.g. wages in China are a lot more than 33% less than in the US? $1 in the US does not go as far as $0.66 in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

The difference I’m talking about relates to the local value of money. In Asia $1 goes a hell of a lot further than $1 in the US and therefore every $ of GDP accounted for by purchases in Asia is equivalent to several dollars of GDP in the US. Put simply, if China was located where the US is, with US costs, it’s GDP would probably be twice that of the US.

Did he really post that? He thinks Russia has a bigger GDP than the EU – & therefore the biggest economy in the world, bigger than that of the USA? That implies he thinks Russia’s GDP per head is more than 3.5 times that of the EU, & more than 2.5 times that of the USA.

He’s a loony.

Very true, it’s completely inaccurate. However, measuring GDP in dollars gives a false impression. For example, Britain and France spend approximately the same amount on defence as Russia, but the Russian military is somewhat larger I’m sure you would agree.

Similarly, in reality, measured on physical output rather than dollar-value, China’s economy has already overtaken that of the US.

If a person earns $50k/year and the basic cost of living is $30k/year, is that person better or worse off than someone who earns $20k/year where the cost of living is $5k per year?

Well no, but T-50 is no equivalent to F-35A, it is more accurately compared with F-22 both in purpose and performance, and price.
It is first and foremost an air superiority platform, with a secondary SEAD/DEAD mission.
For Brazil to buy this fighter, just no, nothing at all can justify the expense.
I would get a shock and promise to be vegetarian for over a week if India doesn’t have a clause that prevent China from buying T-50

I’d be even more surprised if China were even considering it given that they’re developing 2 stealth fighters of their own already.

Only after he cured his left-eye dominance.

Apparently the French were unwilling to offer something to Iraq so no Rafales.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Typhoon isn’t offered for the same reason.

Yes, I mentioned that. 😎

The Nimrod MRA4 was also due to have a secondary role as a bomber with a load of 21 Mk83 1,000lb bombs but sadly the banks robbed everybody before it could be born.

Define “buyer”.

Good point. Is a person who buys your goods with money that you gave them still a buyer?

Really? Arguing semantics? :stupid:

Yes, Israel receives military aid from the US, in the form of -money- which is deposited in an interest bearing account early each fiscal year. Most of this money (~74%) must be spent in the US and the remainder of it may be spent in Israel.

That is to say that Israel is free to use this money to buy any of the four fighters currently in production in the US, or for that matter any other piece of equipment manufactured in the US that the US is willing to sell.

If your point is that no Eurocanard was considered by the Israelis then I can’t argue with that.

If you are trying to argue that the F-35 faced no competition and/or that Israel doesn’t have “requirements” as any other buyer would then you are just flat wrong. Israel has shown itself to be a highly discerning buyer over the years and most certainly defines its own requirements.

…but hey, what do they know anyway? :rolleyes:

Basically the US gave them free tokens as part of an endless promotional offer that were only redeemable at Lockheed or Boeing and surprise surprise, they redeemed their value at Lockheed and Boeing. Besides that, air superiority isn’t a big deal for Israel. It already has it with F-15s and F-16s, what seemingly matters more is strike. So to that ends a stealthier aircraft probably would prove better because it can remain in a passive state and avoid detection by SAM radar when the seemingly inevitable, pre-planned, strike against Iran eventually comes around after Syria has been disarmed.