Re: What value GDP

On May 30, 3:15 pm, The Trucker <mik...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 30 May 2008 14:40:14 -0700, radav wrote:
On May 29, 7:04 pm, mally <Malc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
An eminent Cambridge (England) professor of economics discovered,
after investigation, that a 10% growth of a particular nation turned
out to be a real growth of 2% when he factored in destruction of
assets. It occured to me that GDP, a measure of economic activity was
perhaps irrelevant; a bit like measuring the amount of gambling taking
place and ignoring the winnings and losses.

What I want to know is why do nations not present a balance ***
which would make it easier to establish their financial performance.
Surely this would not be difficult for most governmental statistics
departments.

Any ideas?

Government statistics have an aura of authenticity to the unitiated.
But they can be easily doctored for political purposes. Moreover, such
statistics as GDP, CPI, jobs, unemployment rate, etc. are flawed
conceptually as well as methodologically.

It is the conceptual part that is really irksome.  There is a certain
validity to the claim that measuring the value of all the transactions
taking place in the economy is indicative of how much trading is going on
and thus a measure of expanding economic activity.  But it does not tell
you anything about the gain, if any.  It says nothing about whether the
lives of the people are improving or being made worse for all this
"activity".  About the only measure of general welfare in the society is
the unemployment rate.  This number tells you that there are people
wanting to contribute to the general welfare who are not able to do so
because those who control the means of production are to damned greedy.
In the United States of America we have natural resources that are more
than adequate to the prosperity of the people. We need to measure both
leisure time and disposable income to have a realistic measure of economic
performance.  And money spent on medical insurance and care is _NOT_
disposable income.

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jeffersonhttp://GreaterVoice.org/extend- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

These gov't. statistics, even if not doctored, have no bearing on the
general well-being of a society. The unfortunate situation is that
most phd's in economics have no idea of the concept of "wealth."
Therefore, they cannot possibly understand the laws of the production
& distribution of wealth. Jobs & money are merely means to the end of
obtaining wealth. See the website below

<a href="http://members.tripod.com/~physiocrat/index.html";>political
economy primer</a>
.

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