I think I've finally figured the ACTUAL thing GDP measures: How financialized your economy is.
See, it doesn't measure "stuff produced" but it DOES measure "how many times money changes hands." What's the fastest way to make money change hands? Invent new fake money like loans, debt, derivatives, and stocks. Exchanging goods for money is slow and results in an extremely low GDP because it takes time and effort to move materials.
But changing fictional money? That's effortless with loose financial laws. If two people can arbitrarily declare themselves 10 million dollars and then invest it in each other, then that's 20 million dollars to GDP. There's no upper limit on how often they can invent money, so they could add 20 million dollars of GDP every second if they wanted.
Farming? Manufacturing? That takes time, effort, and is limited to the rate at which physical materials can be moved. Thus, it is a low GDP. Thus, low GDP = produces stuff and sells it, high GDP = plays pretend really hard. Low GDP means people have stuff and can buy stuff.
GDP is like golf, really. Every time a politician talks about raising GDP, he's promoting more "robbing you of stuff and destroying productivity."
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Wiz
in reply to Cars_on_Minds • • •