Re: The Danger of GDP

["Harry Veeder" <veed0001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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>From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>
>To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: The Danger of GDP
>Date: Tue, Mar 14, 2000, 11:59 pm
>

>      Something tells me we have been here and done
>this before.
>       1)  In general, poverty is higher in lower per capita
>GDP countries than in higher per capita ones.  The
>countries with the lowest poverty rates in the world are
>in Scandinavia, all high per capita income countries, although
>some rich countries such as the US have shockingly high
>rates of poverty.
>      2)  Some pollutants increase with GDP, e.g. CO2, some
>decrease with GDP, e.g. many water pollutants, and some
>follow a Kuznets curve of first increasing and then decreasing
>with GDP, e.g. SO2.
>     3)  This Great Depression example looks backward.  Looks
>like an argument for low GDP, that is the Great Depression,
>leading to war, not the other way around.
>      I think I shall try to avoid responding to this individual's
>half-baked arguments further.  As I said, I think we have been
>here and done this before.
>Barkley Rosser



GDP only measures an *outcome*. A national
measure expressed in dollars is an outcome because
it only records the production of commodities, ie. stuff
that can be BOUGHT with MONEY.

GDP has been dishonestly and/or mistakenly presented
as a "rough" meausure of national *output*.
It is no more a rough meausure of national output
than an individual's financial wealth is a rough
measure of their skin colour.
A genuine measure of national output has yet
to be developed.


Harry Veeder