The United States as a Market 
987 
Why the United States is the greatest of the world’s markets. No 
other country furnishes so large a market as the United States. Both 
[India and China are several times more populous, but both are more 
backward and much poorer than the United States. Russia also has 
more people than this country, but is less progressive and prosperous. 
Aside from the United States, the countries of Great Britain, France, 
and Germany are the largest consumers of goods from other regions. 
But Great Britain and Germany together have only as many people as 
this country; while the French are only two fifths as numerous as the 
people of the United States. The World War drained these three 
countries of so much wealth and killed so many of their best men that, 
their value as markets has been greatly decreased. 
Even before the World War the average wealth and buying power 
per person were greater in the United States than in the leading nations 
of Europe. This does not necessarily mean that our people are more 
industrious or skillful than those of Europe, but merely that we have 
been gaining wealth rapidly from a great new country. We have been 
skimming off the cream of the land in the form of primeval forests, 
virgin soil, and the best of mineral deposits. With such wealth it is 
no wonder that the people ¢” ~~ T™ ted States are great consumers. 
F1a. 178. Bathing in the sacred Ganges is a religious rite for a large part of India’s 315,000,000 
people. In spite of the enormous total population, India does not represent the largest kind 
nf market, for the individual purchasing power is low