SOME INSTRUCTIVE MAPS. Voluntary Xchange provides an instructive set of maps comparing the national income of various developed countries with the national income of various States of the Union. It's useful for people to read and understand the post and the commentary, particularly this cautionary observation about democracy.

But, these maps should make it clear that macroeconomically, the countries are anything but equal. And the moose in the room is that the other 19 countries are economically small relative to the U.S. Collectively, they are about twice the size of the U.S. economy, though.

It’s worthwhile to mention why the U.S. Congress was put together with two houses: because proportional representation in the House would allow domination by the populous states, while equal representation in the Senate would give outsized power to the smaller states.

By that mark, what we get with international meeting like this is too much emphasis on the interests of small economies.

The post also includes some observations about developed countries that were not represented in London.