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These three places all have about the same population size
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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Almost similar GDP as well
Canada GDP (2026): $2.51 Trillion USD
California GDP (2025): $4.25 Trillion USD
Greater Tokyo Area (2022): $1.82 Trillion USD
Wide Spread but still all in the low Trillions
California is inflated by Silicon Valley stuff. Maybe left-over Hollywood prestige, as well.
Japan isn't known for it's awesome economy, but it's surprising world city Tokyo is still doing worse than all of Canada including the backwaters.
I wonder how they're determining what's in Tokyo for the GDP calculation. For example, companies' HQs there vs actual factories or whatever they own being elsewhere.
It's not surprising because GDP does not reflect quality of life in any form whatsoever. GDP is not a measure of wealth it's a measure of feverish, extractive, mindless and destructive activity.
Sure, when you go to the store and buy food so you don't starve, that's mindless destructive activity. /s
It's definitely not a measure of wealth, if you know what it is, because it's more of a proxy for income and productivity. And in the end, it correlates decently well with actual lifestyles. (Quality of life is more nebulous; there's miserable rich people and happy hut-dwellers)
California also offers an agricultural powerhouse of productivity, oceanfront tourism, and ongoing techbro circle jerks.
Oh right, a lot of produce that makes it up here is from California, although we've noticeably weaned off of it over the course of the trade war.
I did mention the techbros. If the AI bubble pops, and geopolitics breaks the walled garden monopolies, it might end up a lot closer to Canada.
Doing Worse is subjective.
Higher GDP ≠ Doing Better.
The US has some of the highest GDP per capita on earth but that doesn’t mean it (or its economy, if you don’t define economy just as stock market go brrr) is doing well.
As in, doing worse economically. In this context, where that's clear, it seems like the wording holds up.
GDP measures actual trade more than the stock market. That being said, yes, it's a litmus test, albeit a decently well supported one. The main places it breaks down, in terms of predicting people's lifestyles, is where there's major banking hubs (Singapore, Seychelles, Ireland for a while).
GDP is absolute values, so there's quite a bit of self reinforcement. Especially in service heavy areas, your massage cost 30$ for half an hour, elsewhere you can get a better one for 10$ an hour.
Although the second economy delivered twice the goods at a higher quality, the economic output was 1/3rd
Yes, it gets called a "litmus test". If it's higher you can be reasonably sure whatever place is richer (although banking hubs break that a bit). It itself doesn't correspond to that more than empirically, though.
I wonder if you take out fossil fuel and logging out of Canada’s GDP if it still would be higher than Tokyo’s. Not much logging and oil drilling going on in Tokyo I reckon.
Add mining too. We export a lot of raw minerals
Yes, it's a resource-based economy. Agriculture and mining are also huge. They're all kind of hard to get at resources, though, so it's not like the Persian Gulf, where there's no expenses and it's a money printer. Basically, outside of certain parts of Ontario, people work in that instead of in factories. (And forestry in particular is being imploded by the US, right now)
Tokyo should, in theory, have all kinds of highly skilled professionals, who earn more than whatever logging grunt. But, the gap is still like 150%.