Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Sure, GDP has a lot to be desired, but what other measure of well-being do you want to represent. Those all go up in line with these GDP charts, like the correlation between CO2 and temperature.
I'm way better off than I'd have been in the 70's. There was no internet then, and everything cost more.
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GDP is a reflection of a abstract construct bounded by the parameters of its model.It's not reality.Reality lies outside the mind of the economist.
Your well-being may be a source of misery, suffering,even death for those outside the bounds of the model.
Anthropologists may argue that a hunter-gatherer in Africa today,has more well-being than you.They don't live outside a natural economy.Or a pygmy in the Congo.They can build a home in 3-hours from indigenous material,require no knowledge of a mortgage lender,credit scores;they don't worry about unemployment,repossession,bankruptcy,interest rates,recessions,depressions,stagflation,downturns ,boycotts,tariffs,union strikes,wars.
I'd have to check,but I believe that pre-October 1973,all Americans were better off than today.I'll know more over the coming two weeks.