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Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

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Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#261

Post by papreclip »

MikePlacid wrote: post #207
LeapingLennie wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist recently reported on a study that used the brightness of countries' lights at night as proxy for GDP[1][2]. The study suggests China and other autocracies have significantly exaggerated their GDP growth over the last twenty years. [1]: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-... [2]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/how-much-should-we-tr...

One of the things that struck me as weird after landing in the US - is how wasteful the lightning here is. If I was an autocratic ruler, I would definitely scaled it back a couple of times.

I would scale it back as an autocratic ruler even if hurt GDP. It would be nice to see more of the night sky

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#262

Post by nitwit005 »

This has been known since the idea was first conceived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#Limitat...

The real issue is simply that, a lot of the things we want to convert to simple metrics can't be. Suppose I hand you a list of the exact rate each crime in a country was committed, and I ask you to convert that list to a single number, how would you do so? You could assign a weight to each crime, but how would you know which weights to use? What's the "true cost" of each crime?

Of course, in reality we won't know the real rate of any crime. We will have estimates, which are likely quite far from the truth.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#263

Post by riffraff »

yucky wrote: post #198
jerojero wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you've never really engaged in political philosophy very thoroughly? Much like any political system you can imagine, a democratic system requires a complex web of rules and regulations to function properly. For one, so-called democracies always require more specification. Are you talking about direct democracy? Are you talking about deliberative democracy? Are you talking about representative democracy? Dem…

I imagine you've never really engaged in political philosophy very thoroughly? The opposite, I grudgingly came to this conclusion after decades of believing (or I guess, hoping) differently. Not that it's an original conclusion, many philosophers called it out long before I was even born. Took me awhile to see it. When you say "we are stuck relying on the intelligence and wisdom of the masses" you're making a pro-eli…

> Government only grows

But, say, in western Europe, a ton of things used to be run solely by the government (water, energy production, steel, carbon, telcos, radio, tv, train, local transport, air transport, postal services) and have now moved out of the government purview, isn't that the opposite of "government always grows"?

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#264

Post by [deleted] »

fleddr wrote: post #75

"The philosopher John Stuart Mill noted more than 200 years ago that, once decent living standards were assured, human efforts should be directed to the pursuit of social and moral progress and the increase of leisure, not the competitive struggle for material wealth" Yes, we took the wrong turn. Most people are subjected to a life long rat race of economic relevance/volatility where most of their waking hours are sp…

[deleted]

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#265

Post by zo1 »

voisin wrote: post #101
lkrubner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While RFK sometimes got help from Edwin Guthman and Peter Edelman, he also spoke extemporaneously sometimes, most famously when he had to announce the death of Martin Luther King to a crowd that hadn't yet heard the news: https://kennedykingindy.org/full-rfk-speech

Where are the politicians today who can quote Aeschylus at will? What happened to our national discourse that we’ve filled it with dimwits?

Just wait till the illiterate, misogynistic rap, tik tok, 6ix9ine, WAP, Onlyfans, and other generation starts coming into office and demanding UBI and nuking of Russia while you work your ass off. We'll all be labelled Nazis and clutching our collective pearls at that point trying to make sure our families survive.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#266

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

epgui wrote: post #73
nostromo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more reasonable to say that determining the value of divorce is beyond the scope of GDP.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Did you really read the article?

Please don't do this. It's against the rules, doesn't contribute any new insight, and the answer is plain from the conversation: they did. (Divorce stats being included into new metrics of economic health was specifically mentioned in the article and AFAICT not previously in the comments.)

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#267

Post by thayne »

leetcrew wrote: post #242
fulafel wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "once decent living standards were assured" part covers this.

"decent living standards" are a moving target; the definition is always relative to what is currently possible. in mill's time, this might have amounted to having a roof to sleep under and a reliable source of calories. germ theory of disease was just starting to gain acceptance in the latter part of his lifetime. today we seriously consider providing free healthcare to all, and in some countries this is already a re…

In any major city in even the wealthiest of nations it isn't hard to find people who don't have a roof to sleep under and a reliable source of calories. For large portions of the population, things are definitely better than they were 200 years ago. But we are still a long ways away from decent living standards being assured to everyone.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#268

Post by marcyb5st »

fleddr wrote: post #75

"The philosopher John Stuart Mill noted more than 200 years ago that, once decent living standards were assured, human efforts should be directed to the pursuit of social and moral progress and the increase of leisure, not the competitive struggle for material wealth" Yes, we took the wrong turn. Most people are subjected to a life long rat race of economic relevance/volatility where most of their waking hours are sp…

Ouch. This hits close to home as I feel exactly in that "rat race" you mentioned. And I was thinking about this very topic few weeks back after rewatching "into the wild".

Before stopping thinking about this I "converged" on an overall happiness score combined with a sustainability index. In this context sustainability is in a wider sense like: are the policies of a government sustainable long term? This is to avoid a government game the system by borrowing a bunch to improve citizens happiness short term to stay in power longer.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#269

Post by refurb »

lmm wrote: post #258
refurb wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not absurd. Usefulness is purely the decision of the buyer. You may think buying an expensive car to impress others is stupid, but so? All car sales don’t have to fit within your definition of usefulness. Unless you want the government to step in and define appropriate “usefulness” it’s always going to be up to the Buyer.

> Usefulness is purely the decision of the buyer. You may think buying an expensive car to impress others is stupid, but so? All car sales don’t have to fit within your definition of usefulness. Exactly. So saying that a more expensive car is always more useful is crazy. Maybe the more expensive car is too big for the roads where I live, or has worse fuel economy, or has less interior space.... Price and usefulness a…

Of course they are equivalent, in aggregate across all purchasers.

You aren’t the only buyer, but if they are selling cars someone thinks it’s worth the price.

That’s the beauty of free markets - multiple products for different tastes and different perceptions of value.

I can go out and choose from a small or large, basic or luxury, fuel efficient or not, large capacity or small.

If I don’t think the price is worth the offering, I don’t buy and that impacts the price in some small infinitesimal way. In aggregate across all car buyers manufacturers price for certain segments.

Each product has a subset of buyers who buy the car based on their own interpretation of value.

Re: Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014)

#270

Post by somedude895 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #237
csomar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a BS political speech and it is very politically motivated. When you can't fix the economy (get GDP up), just claim the GDP doesn't matter. My country's president just claimed we should focus on National Happiness Product. Of course, when all your economical policies fail, economy is just numbers. And no, having an accident doesn't increase GDP. If the passengers dies, that will remove their GDP from society.…

There are cases where GDP can be gamed. For example, constructing a building generated GDP, so does tearing it down. In fact, building it and tearing down even if the building is never used are both GDP positive operations. If it can be measured, Goodhart’s law reigns supreme.

> In fact, building it and tearing down even if the building is never used are both GDP positive operations.

Sure, but in most countries buildings are built, used, and then torn down to replace them with something more valuable.

I assume you're referring to China here, and yes, they're certainly gaming GDP to a certain extent. But it'll unravel at some point.

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