[edit] "all but the four largest"... my bad, I misread. Not sure why comparing mega-corps to small nations has much value though.

Not sure where you got your info, but I'm afraid it seems inaccurate. The total wealth of the four largest EU nations, as of 2019, are as follows:

    Germany: $14.7T
    UK: $14.3T
    France: $13.7T
    Italy: $11.37T

Just FYI, the three wealthiest nations are: the US at $106T, China at $64T, and Japan at $25T.

This info is from a Credit Suisse report and is widely cited (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea..., https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-wealth-in..., etc).

By digging a bit into the US data, those numbers are, if anything conservative. According to the US Federal Reserve Bank, in 2014, the US had total assets of $270T and total liabilities of $146T for a net worth of $124T.

> my bad, I misread. Not sure why comparing mega-corps to small nations has much value though.

No worries, it happens to all of us from time to time :)

As for why… the context is just that EU motivation was being discussed.

(Otherwise I would’ve said something like “Those three companies combined are valued more highly than the entire continent of Africa!”)

" of all but the four largest "

So those 4 not included.

Was about to say much the same; as the UK isn’t in the EU, Spain was in the other country in my not-included-four.

You can't compare market cap to GDP. If you compare to actual net ( you're actually comparing GDP) worth the numbers are very different.

No, I am not using GDP, when I wrote “national net worth”, I meant exactly that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea...

Yes, you're right. I'm not sure how why I was convinced it was GDP. I know offhand that's larger than the GDP of all EU countries. My bad.

wealth and income are not comparable