Re: What value GDP

On Jun 1, 8:22 am, "FrediFizzx" <fredifi...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"mally" <Malc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:91062dcb-f656-4b4c-adc8-209729e23392@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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?

Ken Fisher in his book "The Only Three Questions That Count" does
present a "balance ***" for the US for 2005. Here is a summary.

Total Assets 111.051 Trillion
Total Debt 50.325 Trillion
Net Worth 60.727 Trillion

US Income (GDP) 12.766 Trillion

Not hard to see that the US in 2005 was in fine shape. All the info to
do this is publicly available. Can you give us a report for 2007? But
I doubt that it has significantly changed much. Perhaps assets went
down a little and debt went up a little with income rising a little.

Fred

Dear Fred,

Thank you.

I am not familiar with US statistics but clearly Ken Fisher feels that
he managed to get a grasp on asset value. I would like to know how?
Were they Government assets or an estimate of the total nations asset.
etc. etc.

I have often wondered what a nation would use as collateral? Can they
mortgage their army or roads.

I will try to get hold of a copy of Ken Fishers book.
.

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