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.