economics

Real GDP growth

GDP is an ill defined quantity, for it counts cars produced, official credit ratings produced, and regulators producing regulation.  With the best will in the world, it is hard to say how it is changing, and lately we have been seeing some pretty bad will.  Attempting to calculate GDP is worse than adding apples to oranges, it is adding apples to moonbeams.

Supposedly GDP is growing, and growing fast – despite the fact that everyone is feeling poorer, and private sector jobs are declining.  An amazing productivity increase, largely reflecting amazing productivity improvements by government and quasi governmental employees.

So let us look for a different measure:  Taxable retail sales.  Which are stagnant or down.  Population keeps growing, but they are buying less stuff, in part because they are being taxed more.

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