Quote:
Originally Posted by bunnypanda
Well, your question is interesting.
Let's assume that GDP per capital is similar to what you called "wealth".
The GDP per capital in Hong Kong is US$ 25K (6 Millions)
The GDP per capital in Taiwan is US$ 15K
The GDP per capital in Guangdong is US$ 3K (50 Millions)
The GDP per capital in China Mainland is US$ 1.7K
It is difficult to estimate the GDP of oversea cantonese (14 Millions), but let's say they aer similar to what Hong Kong people earn.
So, the figure for all cantonese speakers is estimated as follows,
(20 x $25K + 50 x $3K)/70 = about US $9.3K per capita.
And I believe the GDP for Mandarin speakers (including oversea resident) should not exceed $2k per capita.
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Of course, so obvious, I should have thought of this way to approach the problem. Ok, here are my comments on what you posted:
English advice
1. Actually it should be GDP per "capita" not per "capital". "Per capita" is an expression we use in English that is taken directly from Latin. It means exactly the same as "per head" or "per person".
2. When you quote plural millions, for example "6 million" you don't use the plural word "millions" you still say "million". Yes I know it doesn't make sense but that's English for you. You don't say "3 hundreds or 7 thousands" you should say "3 hundred or 7 thousand". In the same way you don't say "6 millions" you say "6 million".
Thoughts on the actual question
I suspect the GDP per overseas Cantonese speaker might be slightly more than the GDP per HK Cantonese speaker, so let's round your GDP per Cantonese speaker to US$10k per year, so let's call it 5 times as much as the average GDP per Mandarin speaker.
Since there are about 12 times as many Mandarin speakers as Cantonese speakers, it would seem the total GDP of Mandarin speakers per year is about 240% of the total GDP per year of Cantonese speakers.
BUT...
Although this is a pretty good way of approaching the problem, and is better thought out than what I got to, it is still not entirely what I was after. "Wealth" means net assets (that is total assets minus total liabilities). Add up the value of all Cantonese speakers' assets (property like houses and businesses, cars, investments like cash deposits, shares in businesses, etc) and take away all their liabilities (loans from banks, monies owed to anyone, expenses owed by not yet paid, etc) and you have wealth.
This is different from GDP which you can (simplistically) think of as the total "income" of the people. Income is generally earnt in two ways - by selling your "labour" by having a job (some would say selling your soul!) or by getting a return on "income producing assets" for example rent on real estate property, dividends and/or capital gains on shares, profit on shares in private businesses owned, interest on money invested, etc).
Generally, as a very rough guide, the rate of return on income producing assets around the world is about 10% per year, and on ALL assets around the world about 6% (since there are a lot of non-income producing assets, most of which are people's homes that they live in). So if ALL the GDP was earnt merely from all assets (i.e. noone had jobs), the "wealth" would be about the GDP / 6% = GDP x 100/6. If ALL of the GDP was earnt from "selling labour" (that is, working in jobs and noone earnt income on assets) the wealth would be indeterminate. Obviously the true situation is somewhere between these two extremes.
I might be wrong here, but my gut instinct tells me there is likely to be more income earnt by Cantonese speakers in the form of return on investments than there is by Mandarin speakers. Let's say Cantonese speakers' GDP is earnt 50% by labour and 50% by capital, and Mandarin speakers' GDP is earnt 70% by labour and 30% by capital (I have no basis whatsoever for these figures, they are just wild guesses on my part).
So, with these assumptions, it would work out like this:
Mandarin speakers:
Say 840,000,000 of them earning US$2k per year, total income US$1,680,000,000,000. 30% of this return is return on assets = US$504,000,000,000. At rate of return 6% this equates to total wealth of US$8,400,000,000,000 (US$8.4trillion using English [not American] numbering system).
Cantonese speakers:
Say 70,000,000 of them earning US$10k per year, total income US$700,000,000,000. 50% of this return is return on assets = US$350,000,000,000. At rate of return 6% this equates to total wealth of US$5,833,000,000,000 (US$5.833trillion using English [not American] numbering system).
This would mean that the total wealth of Mandarin speakers is about 144% of the total wealth of Cantonese speakers.
Ok, these are wild numbers but good enough for the purpose I needed - looks like I could pretty safely say that the total wealth of Mandarin speakers worldwide is somewhere between 100% to 200% the total wealth of Cantonese speakers worldwide.
Thanks for stimulating my brain to try to come up with a rough answer to the problem.