so people have been intentionally misconstruing the GDP for their own political benefit, let alone financial?

wait? thats news?

damn, unfortunately to alot of people... it is

I can get behind Ronnie on this one. The GDP is a poor gauge of the general well being of regular folk. Reminds me of an adbusters spot on the subject:

22% is crazy, but I believe it. I still only have part time work, and my friend has been unemployed for over a year (he is in construction).

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I can get behind Ronnie on this one. The GDP is a poor gauge of the general well being of regular folk.

On that narrow subject, I agree.

Otherwise, Paul doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. In Paul's example, anyone who just thinks for a few minutes about why he's wrong.

Guy with $200k/yr job, and has $300k in existing debt, and loses his job. Paul neglects to mention assets. Generally speaking, people don't take out loans, and then light the borrowed money on fire. If the guy has $300k debt on a mortgage for a home worth $1 million, he's actually in pretty good shape fiscally speaking, though he may have to sell his house. If he can get a million dollar loan even in that situation, say to start a business, he'll probably have a negative net worth for a few years, but it seems to me that if he can get a million dollar loan for a business in that situation, people believe he will be able to make it work...

Same applies with his insinuation that we should subtract debt from GDP. This is like saying that the only number you should look at to judge your financial situation in your private life is your yearly salary, minus all of your debts. That's seriously negative for me, while a homeless unemployed guy would be only $0. Is the homeless guy really better off than me?

The adbusters clip implies that there should be a social utility factor involved in our measurements of economic growth, otherwise we have perverse incentives that lead us into broken window fallacies (e.g. cigarettes are awesome because not only are they profitable in their own right, they also boost sales in the lung cancer treatment industry). Paul makes that argument too, but he myopically picks an example that's government-specific (i.e. war), when it's a problem all over the place in private industry too.