Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 September 2

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September 2

What are the top 100 economic powers rated by GDP

I am trying to find out the top one hundred economic powers world wide, rated in order by GDP. Not just a list of countries. I am trying to find out what multinational companies make the list and exactly how big they are. For example I heard that walmart has a larger GDP than the country of poland67.189.100.2 (talk) 05:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

There was a table along those lines in Wallechinsky's "Book of Lists", though of course based on late-1970s-era statistics... AnonMoos (talk) 08:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wallmart doesn't have a GDP, nor can many corporations function independently like countries - what sort of measure would be usesful - gross income, net? profits?83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

These might be useful:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2009/

http://seekingalpha.com/article/133563-largest-companies-in-the-world

List of companies by revenue

83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

You could compare revenue of a company with GDP. That sounds like what the OP would be looking for. Can not do profits as governments are generally not profitable. Googlemeister (talk) 13:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually comparing company revenue with GDP is pretty invalid. Company revenue doesn't take into consideration the costs of inputs. for example if a company makes tables, the cost of the wood would be included in their revenue despite it not being something they made. Many sources make this comparison as if it proves that multinational corporations are more powerful than some smaller governments and in that context it is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.122.184 (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Walmart, for example, isn't "producing" anything, they are just selling huge amounts of things made by others. I guess it would be most accurate to say that an amount of goods equivalent to the output of these X countries flow through Walmart stores each year. TastyCakes (talk) 14:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

In macroeconomics, I suppose that would be called something close to the velocity of money within an economy, though you were talking about goods. Tempshill (talk) 14:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

To compare a corporation's "product" (very roughly) with GDP, you'd need to subtract from total revenues (gross income) the cost of all externally sourced inputs, which are to a corporation as imports are to a nation. The "exports" are already captured in gross income. Net income wouldn't work, because it would exclude labor costs, which represent part of the "product" of the company's workers. Since gross income net the cost of inputs is not a standard accounting measure, I doubt that many corporations calculate or publish such a figure. Marco polo (talk) 15:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

There is (at least) one major flaw in the "corporate GDP" formula that I have proposed: the problem of investment income. It occurs to me that this income is not really part of a corporation's "product" but rather an appropriation of part of the value of other entities' products. Failing to address this problem would make the corporate GDPs of large investment banks much larger than the actual value of their "product" since their non-labor input costs are relatively minimal. Marco polo (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Comparing countries' GNPs and companies' revenues may not be economically sound, but it doesn't mean such comparisons aren't being made. Here's a list of top 100 countries/companies made by Wprost, a Polish weekly, in 2003 (scroll down to the bottom). Wal-Mart Stores ranks 21st on this list, between Sweden and Austria. Poland ranks 30th, between Denmark and Ford Motor. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:09, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The list is in Polish, so let me know, if you need help translating the names of some of the coutries. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Just because it is done doesn't make it valid or meaningful. This kind of measure grossly overstates the product of financial and retail corporations with a high volume of throughflow. To suggest that Walmart is more productive than Poland is ridiculous. Walmart's gross income includes the value of the products Walmart sells. This should not be considered part of Walmart's pseudo-GDP. Instead it is part of the pseudo-GDP of Walmart's vendors, largely in China. Considering Walmart a bigger "economy" than Poland is like considering Ukraine a bigger natural gas producer than Norway based on the amount of gas flowing across Ukraine in pipelines, even though Norway has several large gas fields and Ukraine has none. Marco polo (talk) 16:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The OP asked for a list, so I gave them one. I'm not saying it's valid or meaningful. — Kpalion^(talk) 18:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

That's fair, and there's no reason you shouldn't do so. I didn't mean to criticize you, Kpalion. Marco polo (talk) 20:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

GDP is supposed to be 'added value' - I expect the company equivalent would be given by profits (as a very rough first approximation)83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:58, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with comparing profits with GDP is that profits are less wages. The value added by a should not be affected by the wage costs (amongst other costs) included as inputs. To be honest it would be more valid (In my humble opinion) to compare the amounts of money companies can use to affect democracy. The amount a company could succesfully pass under the table to elected officials to the wages of those in power. The relative productive capacities of countries and companies really mean nothing.124.185.238.103 (talk) 15:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Exorcism

Hi! I'm trying to find the Latin text of De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam/Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications. Is there a site where I can find it? --151.51.19.149 (talk) 11:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I searched for a few Latin phrases from the 1998 version and came up empty on the big search engines. You can buy a copy online, and if you live near a university or seminary perhaps you can get it from the library. --Sean 18:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I also was unable to find the text available online. An interesting analysis of the 1999 version can be found here (pdf file). Your best bet to find a copy is to use Wikipedia's search by ISBN feature. 152.16.59.102 (talk) 23:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

The text is from the Catholic Church's Rituale Romanum, Roman Ritual which states: The texts of the Rite of Exorcism are restricted to the study and use of Exorcist Priests who perform this ministry under the direction of the Diocesean Bishop. [1]. Write to a Catholic Bishop, talk to a Catholic Priest, search the Vatican archives. There are valid exorcism prayers that are not restricted, like in the sacramental rite of Baptism and in the baptismal renewal during the Easter Liturgy/Mass. There are also non-liturgical, Catholic devotional exorcism prayers that contain parts of the restricted rite, especially associated with Saint Michael, Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin. Since demons teach demonology, acquiring or using the restricted text illicitly is a very bad idea.

Athabaskan people

Where can I go to learn more about Athabaskan culture, its people and history? The article in Wiki only goes into Athabaskan language. --Reticuli88 (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

If you read the article on the language, you will see that there is no one Athabaskan people or culture. The language group applies to a long list of indigenous peoples from western North America, including Navaho, Apache, Tlingit, Dene, Dogrib, Gwich’in, and Slavey. There's a start on your reading list. // BL \\ (talk) 19:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

working with one another

Does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations work with one another and the United Nations on many different projects?69.203.157.50 (talk) 20:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

NATO has a web page on their relations with the UN. -- kainaw™ 20:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

books with multiple authors of the same name?

Can anyone think of books that have more than one author with the same name? E.g. a book by Fred Jones and Fred Jones, referring to two different people. Let's say it still counts if they have differing middle initials, or one of them is "Fred Jones Jr." or there is some slight variation between names, such as John Jones vs. Jon Jones. Of course there are many instances of multiple authors with the same name who didn't publish any books jointly (e.g. British politician Winston S. Churchill and American writer Winston Churchill (novelist) sometimes got confused with each other) but that doesn't count unless there's a book co-authored by both of them. Thanks. 70.90.174.101 (talk) 20:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The closest I can think of is the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics winners William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg who likely published several works together; they were father and son. --Jayron32 21:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Not an answer, but an interesting sort of sideways miss: William Stevenson wrote a book about (not together with) William Stephenson. --Anonymous, 23:08 UTC, September 2/009.

Trivially, there are books written by multiple people who adopt a co-pseudonym, such as Ellery Queen and M. Barnard Eldershaw, and everyone listed @ Category:Collective pseudonyms. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I just found this one that may be interesting: It's a book called Journey's End, an autobiographical journal started by a U.S. soldier in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Darrell Griffin Jr. After he was killed in action, his father, Darrell Griffin Sr., completed the unfinished book. — Michael J 22:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Native American Origins

I'm of aboriginal ancestry from Vancouver, B.C. in Canada. I was reading Wikipedia's article on the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. I see in the 'Early History' section of the article, it's stated that "All Native Americans are believed to be descended from peoples who came over the Bering Straits land bridge more than 15,000 years ago." I frequently speak with friends of mine who are anthropologists of various stripes and I pay attention to documentary and news items regarding anthropological research. It's been my understanding over the past decade, and more, that the anthropological and archaeological disciplines have abandoned the notion that native americans, with the exception of the Inuit, arrived in the Americas over the Bering Land Bridge since archaeological evidence shows that our populations predate the time when the bridge was exposed. I know that school curriculum has been very slow to catch up with the current data and, so, this is not reflected in the lessons given to students in K-12. However, Wikipedia has the opportunity to keep itself up to date with the latest information. In fact, Wikipedia was not created when the first evidence began to be unearthed to show that Native Americans pre-date the land bridge. I haven't kept a log of articles and discussions where i've been privy to information demonstrating the debunking of the Bering Strait Theory and, so, am unable to provide citations. I looked over the bibliography for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe article and it doesn't seem readily clear as to which texts were the source of the statement regarding our origins. Are you able to identify which books or documents are cited for this information?

Məsteyəxʷ (talk) 21:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The articles Beringia and Models of migration to the New World, which extensively discuss this subject, are very well supported by reliable academic sources, not any kind of "school curriculum". If you have reliable sources that offer an alternate view, those would be the places to add them, and their respective talk pages the best place to discuss them (although I don't at all mean to preclude discussion here too). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The only contradictory scientific theories to the one-migration-over-the-landbridge theory that I'm aware of are detailed in Clovis culture#Evidence_of human habitation before Clovis and the (weak) Solutrean hypothesis. In addition, there is a (rather minor) movement among some native North Americans (but not at all any serious anthropologists) that refutes the entire out of Africa theory of all human origin, but instead returns to Native American myth as the origin story. This has accompanied an entirely justified revision of the sometimes prevailing view that native Americans were primitive boneheads (rather than a very impressive and often quite sophisticated trading culture that really existed) before the European era, but may have swerved from a sober reappraisement into magical thinking. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Thee is evidence that some made it to the Americas thousands of years ago across the Pacific, while others came from Europe along the edge of the ice, in addition to those who came across the Bering landbridge. Edison (talk) 03:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Beyond the presence of the sweet potato in parts of Oceania?--droptone (talk) 11:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that Wikipedia places a heavy emphasis on using reliable sources for articles. As I'm sure you're aware, anthropologists have only just now begun accepting that the first inhabitants of the Americas may have come over prior to the Bering land bridge. So, the issue is that anything written previous to about a decade ago will treat the matter as settled and even many current accounts will at best treat the pre-Beringia stuff as a fringe theory. I believe the evidence has finally started to tip the scales, but change comes very slowly in anthropology and for reasons that have never been clear to me, many older people in the discipline find it almost blasphemous to suggest that Amerindians were here prior to 10,000 years ago. As new blood comes into the field, the matter will become more open to discussion, more stuff will get published and accepted based solely on evidence, and eventually WP will reflect that change in consensus (as an encyclopedia, we're not allowed to decide the facts, only reflect current thinking). A good recent book that overthrows a lot of established (but often imaginary) numbers is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Our article is a little unfocused, but the book itself is an amazing read. If you're looking for a reliable source to change something in an article, that is an excellent book to use. Matt Deres (talk) 13:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Two arguments against too high numbers: the hard archeological evidence seems not to point to very high numbers. Size is not all important, look at the size of Nuremberg at the time of Dürer or Weimar with Goethe and Schiller, any of the Italian Renaissance cities. Cultural achievemnt does not depend of the size of the population alone.--Radh (talk) 07:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Amendments

When amendments are added to the US Constitution are the actual documents modified in some way? Are additional papers (typed? handwritten?) put next to the original documents? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 22:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

There isn't any actual "changes" made to the "original" documents, like with white-out or anything. The amendments just exist, and the orperation of the government changes because of the amendments. There are copies of the text of the amendments all over the place if you want to read them. Except for the original Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights, the original copies of the amendments probably aren't all that historically significant. They are probably in the National Archives and Records Administration. However, the location or even existance of those actual original documents isn't why they are in effect; it was the fact that they were passed according to the correct procedure. If the originals perished in a fire the laws would still remain in effect. --Jayron32 02:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. National Archives has a page on major (and curious) historical documents.

And here's an interesting document about, among other things, what exactly is the actual law. I quote: "Technically, the only authentic version of a law of the United States is the actual physical document that was passed by Congress, authenticated by signature of each House’s chief clerical functionary in accordance with the customs of that House, and either signed by the President or allowed to become law through the President’s inaction or over the President’s veto. These documents are, as we mentioned, kept in the National Archives."

So they really do make an authoritative copy and deposit it in the archives, but obviously they don't deface the older texts. I expect it must be as Jayron says, that the destruction of these papers would not void the law, but one is left to wonder what would happen then. Certainly conspiracy theorists would have a field day.--Rallette (talk) 06:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Does the actual copy of the 23rd Amendment actually give Washington DC a Senator and a Representative? Are the people being defrauded right now?? ARE THEY???? We the people demand to see this secret document which is being unethically, illegally, and unconstitutionally concealed from the people!!! Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Not according to the text it doesn't. It guarantees them the right to the number of presidential electors in presidential elections, as though it had two senators and one representative, but it does not actually change the District's representation in Congress. I quite imagine that you could walk into the Archives building in Washington (it's just behind the Smithsonian) and could view a copy of the actual document itself... --Jayron32 21:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I was about to ask what planet you were from, but your user name kinda answered that question. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you go to this link on the National Archives website, you can see the actual documents of all of the amendments. The original texts are the Congressional resolutions that propose them, which then get voted on by Congress and the states, etc. — Michael J 21:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)