GDP is unscientific and unfair for poorpeople.

[Tom Lehman]

Chang, I don't think that anyone thinks that GDP is a perfect measure of economic
performance.  GDP is only a tool for making gross calculations about accepted
measurable quantities and their increase or decrease in relation to each other.
Even among professionals there are differences of opinion on how some of these
quantities should be calculated in relation to each other--note the thread on
software as capital on this list.

Tom Lehman

chang wrote:


> Date: Monday, August 30, 1999 9:20 PM Doug Henwood wrote:
> >chang wrote:
> >
> >>Why economists all over the world still use Gross Domestic Product
> >>to judge the
> >>economic growth of a certain country and, according to this GDP,
> >>calculate this
> >>country's economic growth rate?
> >
> >GDP measures the production of goods for market and their sale. It's
> >not meant to say anything about the distribution of income or the
> >level of human happiness, though sometimes people take it to be so.
> >What's your point?
> >
> >Doug
> >
> >
>
> Why economists measure only the production of goods for market and their sale?
> Why they don't say anything about the distribution of income or the level of
> human happiness? Should they say anything about the living standards of poor
> people?
>
> Sincerely,
> Ju-chang He
>
> SHENZHEN, P.R. CHINA
> Welcome to My Homepage
> <http://sites.netscape.net/juchang/>