Why Bethesda?

Tyler Cowen quotes Tim Hartford thus:

A small African state like Chad has an economy smaller than that of a Washington suburb like Bethesda and a banking sector smaller than the Federal Credit union set up for World Bank staff.

In Globalization and its discontents, Joseph Stiglitz compared Ethiopia's banking system as being smaller than that of Bethesda, pop. 55,277. I wonder if the Bethesda will become the standard unit of measurement of banking sector size for very poor countries the way internet fame is measured in David Brooks.

Battlepanda = 2.94milibrooksies, almost as low as Kevin Drum's Mom.