“There’s long been a game to play, finding out things that Apple is worth more than,” Tim Worstall reports for Forbes. “Often the calculations are wrong: it may be true, for example, that the value of Apple stock is greater than the GDP of Poland. But this does not mean that Apple is worth more than Poland. GDP is the amount produced each year, not the capital value of what is doing the producing. Apple’s stock value is of course the capital value of the company.”

Worstall reports, “But it is still possible for there to be quite astonishing comparisons made which are indeed entirely valid. Such as this one from the Financial Times: ‘Apple became the world’s most valuable-ever company two weeks ago. It is worth $624bn, more than all the listed companies in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain together. The employer of 63,300 people – each valued at $10m – is more valuable than all the shares available to investors in the MSCI China index, the international benchmark.’”

“Making iPhones and iPads seems to create more value than the entire stock markets of four different countries added together,” Worstall reports. “When you think through it though it’s not all that surprising…OK, no, it’s still surprising, but it’s explainable.”

Read more in the full article here.

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Apple beats Microsoft, sets all-time record for company value at $621 billion – August 20, 2012