Article by economist İ. Kahveci: The world gets richer while Turkey watches

Article by economist İ. Kahveci: The world gets richer while Turkey watches (An excerpt from an article by İbrahim Kahveci, a reputable economist)

Wealth and poverty are the level of prosperity achieved according to the conditions of that day. Poverty is also a concept measured by the precedent environment. Technological and economic greatness is also measured by precedents.

In 1977, the per capita income for the United States was $ 9,453. In 2007, we (Turkey) reached an income of $ 9,712 per person. The clearest results would be obtained by comparing same years with precedents.

For example, in the 60s, Turkey was 2 times richer than South Korea and the Philippines. But now South Korea is 4 times richer than us. It is rather necessary to make this comparison for the last years. Because we say to society (our people) that we are a prosperous country in all manners under the last AK Party power and that we have got up to date (caught up with modern countries). We claim (the government) that we have doubled our income by 3 to 5 fold. But, is this the reality?

Let us take Bangladesh, for example, Ghana and Angola… Between 2003 and 2019, these countries increased their per capita income by 2.65 fold. However, in the same period, the per capita income growth in Turkey was only 0.9 fold.

Even Albania, for example, has increased its per capita income more than twice compared to us. Let us put it another way: in 2003, 1 Albanian citizen owned 39 percent of the income of 1 Turkish citizen. If we had $ 100, the Albanian citizen had $ 39. This ratio went up to 59 percent in 2019. So we now have $ 100 while the Albanian citizen has $ 59.

When you look at the related chart, everyone is observed to surpass our performance, except for South Africa. Even Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Argentina, China, Malaysia, Russia, Romania, Panama and Uruguay have come behind us and come far ahead.

By the way, let’s point out that in 2020, our per capita income has already decreased to $ 8,599. In short, we are getting poorer than other countries.

But there are also those who get rich much faster than us, even if they don’t beat us. In Ghana for example, the per capita income increased 4.27 times, corresponding to 5 fold increase as compared to Turkey.

The world has changed over the last 20 years. Even countries referred to with words such as famine misery in the past, have almost caught up with us, but we think of ourselves as an example of great country (meaning economic performance). Or else, that is the propaganda promoted in public.

Although we are a country that is rapidly losing altitude in the world rankings (as we have declined 24 places in the last seven years), falling behind precedent countries and becoming relatively poor, selling it to society as wealth must be the main success.

SOURCE: karar.com/yazarlar/ibrahim-kahveci/dunya-zenginlesti-biz-ise-seyrettik-1590109