Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success (2014) • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:27 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #62

It's hard to overstate how terrible this idea is. GDP is a concrete measure that is difficult to fake. Once you start arguing about the economic value of volunteering, divorce, income inequality, and crime -- you've opened the door to never being able to trust GDP again. Should we create new metrics to track progress? Sure. Should we stop tracking GDP? No way.

Actually we can get better metrics than GDP by measuring amount of light on satellite night images. It fits GDP more or less for western democracies, but it it better measure for other countries.

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

#72

Post by drekipus » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #42

Preparing the ground for a complete collapse in your standard of living... "Don't worry your happiness was only an idea and didn't really exist anyway"

While it's fair to mention that, I don't think it's really of relevance.

One could argue that GDP is objectively bad, whether there is a boom or bust going on or about to happen.

Things will naturally get worse before it gets better. Just strap in and enjoy the ride.

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

#73

Post by epgui » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #70

epgui wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it more unreasonable to assume the value of these things is >0, or to assume that the value of these things is ==0? I don't think anybody is arguing that we should stop measuring or looking at GDP entirely. The article argues that we need to recognize that we can't just close our eyes to the value of these things. It's kind of like talking about the value of a human life in dollars. We know this number is more tha…

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

No post body was provided.

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

#74

Post by allemagne » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #13

It is interesting how western countries want to change the metric for economic progress when they are lagging on it. They wouldn't leave GDP as metric if all was well.

Whatever attitudes there are in regards to GDP across a diverse set of societies is essentially a deliberate and sinister choice by someone. That much is obvious. However, the thrust of the article is actually pretty much the opposite, that Western/developed countries stubbornly want to keep the metric of GDP due to "vested interests".

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

#75

Post by fleddr » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

"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 spent just trying to make a living, by any means necessary.

What makes the state of humanity extra sad is that all this raping of the planetary resources that we do still does not elevate us out of this misery.

It's unclear who this destructive machine is serving. Consider the point of view of an ordinary citizen. Who genuinely has your best interest at heart?

A business? No. A bank? No. A country? No.

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

#76

Post by humanistbot » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #65

lkrubner wrote: post #58

Robert Kennedy, on the campaign trail in 1968: "Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising…

Any idea who wrote that speech for Robert Kennedy?

Most likely Ted Sorensen, JFK's chief speechwriter and also very involved in RFK's 1968 campaign.

Edit: He also wrote the "We choose to go to the Moon" speech

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

#77

Post by kornhole » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

transcriptase wrote: post #6

deltree7 wrote: post #4

Nobody makes any policy decisions based on GDP. It's just a proxy of economic activity. Nobody ever said, We (won't) need policy X because we are at Y GDP. Companies make decision based on supply/demand. So, this whole research is kinda pointless. In fact the worst thing anyone could do is have a metric and make the entire nation focus on that.

Tell that to the Canadian government. It currently considers massive deficits fine because of our debt-to-GDP ratio, despite GDP being driven by a real estate bubble for the last several years.

It is not just Canada. The US and other countries justify their debt levels by this and it is used by bond traders to measure health of bonds issued. Military spending as percentage of GDP is also cited. So if military spending and borrowing ability is pegged to GDP, you can see why we pump it up as much as we can as distorted as it is on a nation's internal well being.

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

#78

Post by paxys » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

I don't think there is any agreed upon measure of "national success". GDP as a measure pretty closely tracks the economic condition of a country, and that is what it is used as.

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

#79

Post by dongobongo » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:31 PM UTC

From Luke Smith's post on GDP: https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-its-bad-to-have-high-gdp/

"GDP is only a measurement of how reliant a place or country is on the global economy. Self-sufficiency has a GDP of 0. Wasteful consooomerism has an extremely large GDP."

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

#80

Post by dakial1 » Mon, Oct 31, 2022, 11:32 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #62

It's hard to overstate how terrible this idea is. GDP is a concrete measure that is difficult to fake. Once you start arguing about the economic value of volunteering, divorce, income inequality, and crime -- you've opened the door to never being able to trust GDP again. Should we create new metrics to track progress? Sure. Should we stop tracking GDP? No way.

It is not difficult to fake (e.g. China for the last 20 years). But I agree with you, we should add new metrics (and targets) but keep a GDP as one of them, also for the other indicators to mature (how they are measure, methodologies, transparency, etc...). Maybe one day GDP would be able to be left behind...