GDP is unscientific and unfair for poor people.

chang chang at public.shenzhen.cngb.com
Fri Sep 3 16:52:23 PDT 1999


-----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, September 03, 1999 6:13 AM Subject: Re: GDP is unscientific and unfair for poor people.


>chang wrote:
>
>>When there is a large GDP and a high growth rate of 9% a year, you
>>will say that
>>the economy is great and the financial officer will be proud of it. But I will
>>still say that the economy is bad. It is because poor people's
>>living standards
>>haven't been raised. They don't have work. They have been left out
>>of prosperity.
>
>Not all poor people don't have work; lots of them work very hard and
>are still poor.
>
>It's not the case that GDP growth does nothing for the poor. More
>poor people can read and live longer lives than poor people 100 years
>ago. But over the shorter term, the last 20 years have been really
>awful for the world's poorest. Absolute poverty in Mexico - measured
>by ability to meet basic nutritional needs - is worse now than in the
>Salinas days. Poverty rates are up in lots of Latin American
>countries despite GDP growth. Global income distribution keeps
>polarizing.
>
>I'd be very interested to hear if poorer Chinese think they're better
>or worse off than 20 years ago. Do people like what you have to say?
>
>Doug

In China, the living condition of poor people is as same as 20 years ago. But a few people's living standards has been raised, not the poor. Chang



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