GPI: Genuine Progress Indicator

["Harry Veeder" <veed0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE GDP"

http://www.aloha.net:80/~jhanson/page11.htm

Introduction from site:

"Since its introduction during World War II as a measure of wartime
production capacity, the Gross National Product (now routinely measured as
Gross Domestic ProductãGDP) has become the nation's foremost indicator of
economic progress. It is now widely used by policymakers, economists,
international agencies and the media as the primary scorecard of a nation's
economic health and well-being.

Yet the GDP was never intended for this role. It is merely a gross tally of
products and services bought and sold, with no distinctions between
transactions that add to well-being, and those that diminish it. Instead of
separating costs from benefits, and productive activities from destructive
ones, the GDP assumes that every monetary transaction adds to well-being, by
definition. It is as if a business tried to assess its financial condition
by simply adding up all "business activity," thereby lumping together income
and expenses, assets and liabilities.

On top of this, the GDP ignores everything that happens outside the realm of
monetized exchange, regardless of its importance to well-being. The crucial
economic functions performed in the household and volunteer sectors go
entirely ignored. The contributions of the natural habitat in providing the
resources that sustain us go unreckoned as well. As a result, the GDP not
only masks the breakdown of the social structure and natural habitat; worse,
it actually portrays such breakdown as economic gain."