Also GDP is a terrible proxy for economic prosperity. A broken window adds to GDP, but subtracts from prosperity. If we had a better proxy for prosperity, it would be easier to see if government debt was actually net negative or net positive effect. As is, all arguments one way or the other are speculation and ideology.
I think prosperity (particularly if we include health, education, wellbeing etc) is unfortunately very difficult to measure and any attempt necessarily incorporates a lot of speculation and ideology.
A forest cleared creates wealth & prosperity, but what was the value of the forest that was lost? What value do we put on natural amenity, biodiversity, a pristine environment?
An employee works very long hours, numbers go up. Great. In specific situations though we can ask: was any wealth actually created, or was the wellbeing of the employee and their children simply exchanged for dollars?
As the divide gets more extreme (between GDP per capita numbers and reality), I think we’ll soon have a “Quality of Life” kind of an index.
You can have a high salary in country A, but live in a small studio, eat shit-food and have to take a crappy metro for work.
Or you can take a much lower salary, live in a nice 2-Br apartment, eat at nice restaurants and take a new nice metro for work, and still be able to afford a car.
You’d need $120k/year to afford 1 in New York, and $30k/year to afford 2 in Kuala Lumpur.
basically, yes. Its called the housing market - an asset that controbutes nothing to the economy goes up in value and makes life unaffordable for new generations.
There are pther manofestations of thos, and it is not always done by governments.
One of the few true reflections of economic health is commodities - those cannot be fakes.
Sure, but you also have to consider the proximity to where the productivity gains are happening. The median household income has increased 4 times over in SF since 1990 (30K - 120K). Do you really expect property values in SF to stay the same? And of course, that's just the median. At the high end, the difference is even more pronounced.
Also GDP is a terrible proxy for economic prosperity. A broken window adds to GDP, but subtracts from prosperity. If we had a better proxy for prosperity, it would be easier to see if government debt was actually net negative or net positive effect. As is, all arguments one way or the other are speculation and ideology.