this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
586 points (97.3% liked)
unions
2046 readers
52 users here now
a community focused on union news, info, discussion, etc
Friends:
- https://lemmy.ml/c/labor
- https://sh.itjust.works/c/unions
- https://lemmy.ml/c/coops
- https://lemmy.ml/c/antitrust
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Thank you. I'm not a fan of GDP. If you and I started crotch kicking businesses and paid each other $1,000,000 dollars to kick each other in the crotch, we just contributed $2,000,000 to the GDP with nothing of value created. My testicles hurt and your $PARTS hurt.
I even question the usefulness at high levels. It doesn't measure how much wealth is produced. Say our GDP is 10 billion. Let's say 2 billion is tshirts that suck and get thrown away. Next year we make tshirts that last 5 years and our GDP is 11 billion because they cost more. Year 3, it shrinks to 9 billion because we don't have to make as many tshirts. We are better off in year 3 than year 1 by a billion, because we actually kept those shirts instead of tossing them.
I would like to see GDP numbers adjusted for useful production. E.g. since 40% of food is trashed, cut that portion of the GDP by 30% (we need some wiggle room so a bad crop doesn't cause a famine)