Sooner or later, and it probably is already too late, this futile oxymoronic mantra of "Infinite growth on a finite planet" will bite us all.
Wellbeing does NOT depend upon GDP.
The two are incompatible.

Why? These are not and never ever were, mutually exclusive ideals, Genius!

Putting wellbeing ahead of the GDP is entirely unnecessary when with the right policies, one can do both and quite massively on all fronts! TBC.
Alan B.

GDP is already the victim of 'well being' and silly socialism. Everything we do, everything we want, costs money. The results of lowering GDP per capita are already evident in stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, high unemployment, etc.

Strong GDP and well being are like the old song 'Love and Marriage' - you can't have one without the other.

Wellbeing does NOT depend upon GDP.
ateday,
In my view GDP is the Anti-wellbeing as the end result ! One just has to look at the people who advocate growth, everyone of them an egotist !

Bushfires and 'climate change'. How quickly Richard reveals his brainwashed ideology. Just a little dig at the PM but his hatred of what has made the West so prosperous is not disguised to well. Oh well it was global cooling, the ozone layer, global warming, sorry climate change, overpopulation blah blah blah. The stupidity of Marxism and destruction of the natural family is doing far more damage than anything else. At least Trump is kicking back on very dumb Marxist ideology.

Your wellbeing and the economy are mutually entwined! Ask anyone doing it tough! Not your average latte-sipping inner-city fool!
Or any greenie!

Can't imagine carbon-free nuclear energy without nuclear waste and gamma radiation.

Have MSR explained to them over and over and yet they still come out with the same stylised silly objections in par for the course, broken record rhetoric!

Come out with the same stupid stuff like choosing between the environment or the economy?

Can't seem to get their pea brains around the fact we can have both and a turbocharged, decarbed economy simultaneously!?TBC.
Alan B.

The progress of the wealth class, is quite good thanks Richard. The " others " matter not at all, unless as fodder to be plundered for Capitalism.

That little part of it is also progressing along successful lines too.
The rise in importance for those ends, is going great guns too, with a real estate office on every second corner, doing a champion job of seperating the class structure and ensuring the riff-raff obey the rules of their position, by scampering off to their three part time jobs, enabling them to pay the wealthy rent gougers, ensuring a wine and bikki life style for them, off into the sunset.

More thoughts for my book!

Dan

How the hell is some inner city dwelling bureaucrat/greenie going to have any ideas of what generates wellbeing for me, my next door neighbor or the hippy down at Nimbin.

Their idea of wellbeing, or a good lifestyle is so totally opposed to ours that they could never understand what would generate wellbeing for us.

The progress of the wealth class, is quite good thanks Richard. The " others " matter not at all, unless as fodder to be plundered for Capitalism.
Loudmouth2,
You have unwittingly perfectly described the Taxpayer funded Academic Bureaucracy !

GDP = Gross Domestic Product. It is a metric about the productivity of a national economy. National wellbeing depends on the distribution of wealth and income.
Labour has totally lost its power to bargain, and right wing governments are in power almost everywhere, busily dismantling welfare nets, privatising vital public goods and services, allegedly to make them more "efficient".
This is how it is done:-
1. Allege that some public good or service is inefficient.[Of course it is "inefficient" you are not supposed to make a profit out of other people's misfortunes].
2. under-fund that public agency or department.
3. Point to it, and say: "Oh look, it is not working" [This is true, but it is now "victim-blaming"
4. Privatise the agency.
5. Taxes are diverted from vital public services into corporations and profits. Public servant lose their jobs, people depending on the vital public service lose their safety nets.

And always the lie of "trickle down economics". So the poor vote for billionaires. The oligarchy of corporations have gamed this all out perfectly. Mass media like the Murdoch press floods the world with disinformation. So rapist, racist trolls like Donald Trump get into power. Game over.

GDP is largely useless when it comes to measuring individual well-being or even prosperity.

Australia has had decent GDP growth figures for the last few decades. But this has only been achieved by swelling the population through massive immigration, thus making the economy bigger.

If you examine per capita household income, Australia is going backwards. So is our quality of life and wellbeing.

More on Australia's household income depression here: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/11/australias-income-depression-deepens/

Does anybody really think that life is getting easier or better in Australia?

Rob H,
I agree with your assessment but you must acknowledge that the thousands of incompetent & corrupt bureaucrats on top Dollars have an equal share in the blame for this situation to eventuate.

Every western-style economy rests on just two support pillars, energy and capital. When we were the third wealthiest economy in the world and a creditor one at that we had cheap energy and cheap money and housing as a human right and not so much as a negatively geared investment for the parasite class!

We had competent people with vision, who gave a rats, at the helm!

And a far more egalitarian society were co-ops supported almost every country town and put a floor under most farm incomes. We also had a robust and protected manufacturing economy.

Environmentalists seem to think you can have an enviroment without a robust economy and not possible! (Ethiopia)The environment needs carbon-free energy and the economy needs cheaper than coal nuclear energy!

And we need real tax reform that lowers tax for all taxpayers and obliges the dodgers and leaners to pay a fairer share! The economy must become our servant rather than as present we chained to it like a blinded Samson. I've laid it time and again chapter and verse! Time to start trying a few new ideas and before we're all toast! And too easy!
Alan B.

...Does anybody really think that life is getting easier or better in Australia?...FrankU

It's true, life wasn't meant to be easy. And I look back, it never was entirely easy. But it's not entirely bad either. Life has its moments!

But what I notice, is the increasing feeling that I don't belong in this Country Australia.
I can personally adjust to this feeling, and I can reason it out using past experience and applying perspective. This is the advantage the younger generation don't have.

What is stark about it, is the dogs breakfast this country has become. It now feels that all our institutions are nothing more than a facade of pretence.
I increasingly compare Australia to South Africa, but worse.

At least in SA corruption is not hidden. You know you must pay a thug to watch over your parked car. A bit like a tip in the US.
But in this country now, the enemy is the Government, at all levels.
The whole of our economy is aimed like a cannon against the citizen. It is mercyless.
We are plundered left right and centre.

It is increasingly obvious, as in South Africa, the dividing line between the haves and have nots. And that feature is speeding up.
The dividing line is drawn at the point of belonging. And that point is defined by your wealth. No asset, no belong.

Dan

But in this country now, the enemy is the Government, at all levels.
diver dan,
that's because its enemy from within, Leftist Australians, are sabotaging all that is right !

If we really want to get this country up and running we need to change from the current economic paradigm. And understand that a war on poverty is a war that is good for all of us if done well!

Only fools believe that they can get more from a deliberately shrunk economic pie or that we can have an enviroment without a robust self-sustaining economy!

A war on poverty never ever includes taxpayer-funded handouts!

But government-funded and facilitated cooperative ventures. Could be virtually anything from cottage industries to small high tech enterprises where the employees are also the only shareholders

This would not be free money but conditional loans supported by thirty-year self-terminating government bonds which would also do double duty as retirement investment vehicles!.

Co-ops could be small and competing for market share thorium MSR's power company co-ops or modest deionisation dialysis desalination water supply companies or pipeline co-ops.

Cannot be monopolised foreign ventures that defeat the entire object of our own enterprise. We've tried our best to sell our country down the river and nobody is better off! But lots of us are far worse off comparatively!

Given we use this as our template allow one dollar to do the work of seven. And with enhanced universal well-being, we can then set aside large areas of the natural wilderness as permanent parks that are properly managed by paid for staff and there for all to enjoy!
Alan B.

I don't know Dan, as a pensioner in Oz I think I have it pretty good.

Yes the free health care system "aint what it's cracked up to be", but it's not real bad.

Yes it is best to go into retirement with a few assets, but then why should someone else's efforts supply us with our homes car etc. I think we make our own future. I could have been wealthy if I had chosen, but instead I chose to go & do the things I wanted to do, when I was young & healthy, & at my greatest earning potential age.

If pensioners are poor, I would rather be poor than have missed out on my motor racing, sailing around the Pacific Islands, or the kids show jumping.

With access to education being so easy today, anyone who chooses wisely can have a lucrative career, & end up very comfortable. It is no one else's fault if, like me, you chose fun over wealth, or a career path that is poorly paid.

I don't give a damn if some have billions, it effects me not at all. As long as there are enough crumbs left for us to have comfortable accommodation, a car or 2, & food on the table. Oz today still offers that to anyone of sound mind & body, prepared to put in a moderate effort on their own behalf.

Hasbeen,
I'm mostly with you on that one. My setbacks were due to having been robbed on 5 occasions & no compensation from SGIO despite full comprehensive premiums.
Bureaucrat incompetence & vindictiveness played a big part as did setbacks of the Whitlam economics i.e. job losses.
Several exiting things such as being on expeditions & Documentary filming etc.were worth more than just Dollars in the Bank.

I don't give a damn if some have billions, it effects me not at all.
Hasbeen,
Come to think of it, IT DOES affect us in many ways from economics to environmental. Such people are actually the worst offenders regarding environmental footprints & manipulating economics which in turn affect the environment which affects us all .