

Recession map

Red all over

Mapping the global recession

See article

Readers' comments


Polish Capitalist

Judging by the comments, the map is not accurate. For instance my home country, Poland, has had positive GDP growth in the first half of the year, small but positive.

Gwendolyn Zhu

china is expanding, but remember the cost.
Not only the pollution, but also the unpaid and lower-income workers.
Who knows their future?


BTW, Aisap you're right, Brazil is actually one of the fastes growing economies in the world right now. In fact they are growing at a faster rate than Argintina!


to Le-Orient,

I wish to inform you on something. These countries that you say are failing because of capitalism are NOT capitalists. Capitalism is when you virtually pay the government very little taxes in return for very little. The idea of it is that businesses can do anything government can, but better. India and China are both opening their markets and becoming more and more capitalist every day, while the supposedly already capitalist nations are doing the exact opposit. We, in the US, pay almost 40% of our income to taxes and it's even higher in Europe. The farther you deviate from capitalism the worse off you'll be. I would be happy to answer any questions you have or anyone else's questions about capitalism and how we, in the US, are not capitalist anymore. For a more direct way to contact me just email me.


I hope you take an interest in this as it is my life's work.



...are the ones that are not "blind capitalists" or allow "fake ponzi" schemes to take place legally.

No they're too busy getting down to the meaningful business of building skyscraper places for themselves whilst their hoards go around burning and beating up witches or Muslims and your intuitionally corrupt bureaucrats thieve the land from your illiterate, disease ridden and malnourished under classes.

Three cheers then for the Indian and Chinese centuries and dawning of the age of power based on the age old wisdom of the east.


As you all can see from the map that the countries that are in "green" are the ones that are not "blind capitalists" or allow "fake ponzi" schemes to take place legally.

And the countries that are in "red" are the ones that are past their prime to play any meaningful role in the global economy and that will become more pronounced as we go into the future (we hope so).

Large countries that are in "green" are the ones that have not allowed themselves to be "misled" by this grand talk of "laissez faire" capitalism and have followed their own "unique path" (wisely).


@ Bloxar.

I find your post quite amusing. You just don't get it.

I'm not making a judgement call on any figure per se. I'm making a point about the lack of congruence between the figures and labels used and/or quoted by this publication.

Not quite the same thing.


You ran out of red ink before you came to Croatia did you Sir, because for the record it is well and truly up to it's neck in donkey manure although I'm not sure quite sure how much of this is due to the global downturn and how much is down to the incorrigible imbeciles running the place, not so much Diocletian as much as Lurkio’s old master Senator Ludicrus.

Arturs C

If you denote Europe in light red colour, than you should put Latvia in almost black one!
And Belarus is actually growing at the moment, by some 1-2%


@ Sisifodichoso

Well if you’ve got these figures from The Economist you surely are at seriously “Risk”.

I’m warning you! just in case.

If The Economist says buy... buy... especial innovative financial products from Madoff don’t do it again, please.:)


@ bloxie

"Where did you get those figures?"

When i wrote "according to the economist", that means that i got those figures from economist.com

That was pretty much the point of my post, but i guess you just couldn't grasp that.


@ Sisifodichoso

1 Argentina growth rate for 2008 was 7.1% and not 6.5%
2 “Is expected to contract between 4 and 4.5% (3.5 + 0.5/1.5%) in 2009 ????”

Wrong again is expected to grow 5.3 % what compared with the international scenario is still a good number.

Where did you get those figures?


Red is not recession, its the color of uncooked pork capitalist swine flu. Surely the western countries are not in recession, they're just in irresponsible spending spree. But some will fancied the world "recession" as in my problem is also your problem too.


Moody's and The Economist says:

This is incorrect. If anything, in Central Europe it is Poland that should be categorized 'at risk' and NOT "in recession". According to a recent article (Poland Bucks Recession as Neighbors Struggle) and analysis by economists and analysts of the European Union [ http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1247368623.05 ], "Poland has come into this crisis in a rather stronger position than a number of other countries."

How does Moody's come up with it's figures and analysis and why does its report contradict every other economic forecast of Europe?


One reason for the green in India, Indonesia and Egypt is population growth.

Perhaps development in per capita/GDP could be shown on a different map?


This is one of those articles which demolishes the Economist's credibility. One crystal clear example.

The economist puts Argentina "At Risk" on this article, while it has been bashing about how Argentina is about to fall (i agree) for the last months, only to add that due to the swine flu's impact on the GDP, contraction should be expected to be between 0.5 and 1.5% more than previous forecasts predicted.

Bottom line is, according to the Economist, Argentina grew 6.5% in 2008 and is expected to contract between 4 and 4.5% (3.5 + 0.5/1.5%) in 2009. What numbers are you looking at when you label it "at Risk"?


Might be interesting to note that, here in Perth, West Australia, you would barely notice this is all happening apart from the media.

Between Nov 08 - Feb 09 the fear was palpable, but its pretty much gone back to business as usual.


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