GDP is unscientific and unfair for poor people.

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Mon Sep 6 07:49:32 PDT 1999


Oh Stephen, would you want someone to comment on all of your e-mail posts that " if only Stephen could convince Clinton to do this, and if only Stephen could convince Greenspan to do that." What you say below could be said of just about everything everybody says on left e-mail, n'est-ce pas ? If only Max could get the Democrats to listen to him on Social Security, you know.

Criticism of the bourgeois media is fair game on e-mail, even though we can't get them to listen to it.

Charles


>>> Stephen E Philion <philion at hawaii.edu> 09/03/99 06:35PM >>>
Now, Charles, if only you could convince Zhu Rongji and Jiang Zemin, then they would stop listening to well paid World Bank and Ford Foundation funded Chinese economists and pay more attention to economists like our LBO-talk friend Mr. Ju....or even you...

Steve

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Charles Brown wrote:


>
>
> >>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> 09/03/99 01:03PM >>>
> At 12:15 PM 9/3/99 -0400, Charles B. wrote:
> > for example by serving as the base for comparing social
> >> welfare spending among different countries (i.e. what share of national
> >> wealth is being spent on human development).
> >>
> >> so it is not the indicator itself, but how it used that is fair or unfair
> >> to poor people.
> >>
> >(((((((((((((((
> >
> >Charles: Right. It is used to hoodwink.
> >
>
>
> Charles, you are not replying to the point I made and demonstrated in this
> thread - that you can use a gdp based statistic to critique capitalist
> development - e.g. by comparing the % of the gdp (or economic activity in
> substantive terms) spent on social welfare. US has the highest gdp in the
> world and one of the highest gdp per capita levels, yet its social
> spendings are about 16% of the gdp, comparing to 28%+ in Europe. That is
> not hoodwinking, it is a national disgrace, in my opinion.
>
> ((((((((((((
>
> Charles: I am replying to the other part of what you said. The use of GDP or its derivative ( "the economy is booming") you analyze is not the one that gets featured in the monopoly media. The people who we are discussing being hoodwnked do not on their own or through media encouragement use GDP in an analysis like the one you give above.
>
> CB
>
>



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