As wrong as they are to think that this is just dandy, they are right to look at the current setup and predict that the same will continue, more or less, or that GDP will decline in the next few years as the mining boom slows, or other factors change… and perhaps start thinking that a boost to immigration could well counter this.

I asked:

>> What on Earth is GDP really about?? What is it actually telling us? <<

Your answer…

<< Just this: "The monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period". >>

YES! (including all those generated by floods, car accidents, illness….and all of the duplication of everything that goes hand in hand with rapid population growth.)

I other words: it is actually telling us sweet stuff-all of any real value.

<< It tells us "our real national economic situation", with some level of precision. >>

Oh PLEASE! That it certainly does NOT tell us. Not by a million miles!!

<< It cannot mislead, because it is inanimate. >>

What?!?

So, no ‘inanimate’ number can mislead us then? Surely you can see that lots of numbers can mislead us terribly, if they are ill-conceived. Statistics of all sorts can be highly misleading, even if they are honestly and accurately derived.

‘It cannot mislead, because it is inanimate’ - what a strange thing to say!

LUDWIG..;HOW DOES THIS FACTER INTO GDP?
the transphere of wealth..was paid for by bailout[bailout=cashflow>
http://www.wholesaledirectmetals.com/index.php/gold-blog/622-govt-seizes-control-of-all-your-financial-accounts

how does bail-in affect gdp..
[bail-in for the benifit of shadow;
is when bankers take our savings as being investment..and turn them into worthless promises of shares]

anyhow

''your/Homes”..are being turned/Into Rental Empires.

Private Equity Firms Drowning in..baiLout/top-down/Profits..[or rather their/claim/to be drowning in proffits..[mainly by importing thousands..of mexicans..into their future ghetto's]/nsa is actually delivering them/

regagardless..

Security is a slippery idea these days —
especially when it comes..to homes and neighborhoods.
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/americas-housing-recovery-transforming-foreclosed-homes-rental-empires-private-equity-firms-drowning-profits/

Perhaps the most controversial development in America’s housing “recovery” is the role played by large private equity firms. In recent years, they have bought up more than 200,000 mostly foreclosed houses nationwide and turned them into rental empires.

In the finance and real estate worlds, this development has won praise for helping to raise home values and creating a new financial product known as a “rental-backed security.” [next big bubble/or laest way to become a slum lord?

Many economists and housing advocates, however, have blasted this new model as a way for Wall Street to capitalize on an economic crisis by essentially pushing families out of their homes, then turning around and renting those houses back to them...

rent=GDP RIGHT?
EVEN IF its govt rent assistance?
tax deductability..does thAT/add or subtract..from gd[product?or\production?]

http://patriotrising.com/2014/06/18/amount-fraud-across-board-epic-weve-never-seen-anything-like/
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/enron-2-0-wall-street-wants-manipulate-state-energy-markets-just-like-manipulates-every-market.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/enron-2-0-wall-street-wants-manipulate-state-energy-markets-just-like-manipulates-every-market.html

http://www.voltairenet.org/article178638.html

AND WHAT ABOUT THAT BAILOUT/10 billion joe gave tHE FED?
that the fed gifted to the imf/world banker[all fractional reserved leveraged..into manyfold joes gift/to imf

anyhow the money is comming back as student debt

so the bank already has our future leaders in debt to them[too clever by far/govt saves money/by students getting inti debt/to imf

how does that money flow/affect gdp
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/23/it-takes-mark-cuban-less-than-90-seconds-to-outline-his-dire-prediction-about-the-student-loan-crisis/

they want us in debt/from cradel to grave
why[read the enron link]..your super is gone/at least hold some cash/[in low denomination notes/but especially..in coin/that debasement of the queens coin is high-treason...BEST HOPE WE DONT GO TO WAY/then treaon=death.

its them or us//these leeches are taking the living/life blood
into coroerate excess/via eNRONESQ pricing..and stuff the pubic weal/let alone the common good...

That's just vanity, Ludwig.

>>Yes we have. Me and every other sensible and logical-thinking person on the planet, that is!<<

You actually believe, it would appear, that you are in the company of intelligent people, when you apply GDP - a historical and inanimate number - to the cause of predicting the future. It is noticeable also, that you haven't been able to find one single instance of this habit, despite my asking you to justify it. Are you really sure that you aren't on your own in this folly?

I can sort-of vaguely see how you manage to mislead yourself, though.

>>You can surely see that there is no shortage of insane people who simply see that GDP is growing and think that that is just marvellous, and that all else being equal it should keep on growing, and being marvellous. They see the current situation as an indicator of what we should expect in the near future.<<

Growing GDP is good. Shrinking it is not good. So that part is right.

But "seeing the current situation as an indicator" is where your thinking goes off the rails. The anticipation that continued GDP growth will occur is dependent upon the economic inputs, not on the historic GDP figure. So today's GDP cannot possibly be "an indicator of what we should expect", either in the near, medium or long-term future.

It is akin to saying "Collingwood are ahead at the first change, so we don't need to put anybody on the park for the second quarter". The quality of the inputs - economic, or football players - will determining the outcome of the economy (next quarter's GDP) in the first instance, and the half-time score in the case of the footy.

>>So, no ‘inanimate’ number can mislead us then? <<

The number itself cannot mislead. It is the use to which it is put - such as your desire for GDP to become some kind of crystal ball into the future - that can mislead you. As it obviously does in this instance.

Are you starting to see it now?

Crikey Pericles, you are going on about this future-indication bit!

Our positions are actually very close on this. You say that there is no predictive element to GDP and I say that the predictive element is very limited indeed, and that any predictive power of GDP in terms of our economic wellbeing is completely absent.

Can’t you just accept that GDP is not totally devoid of some use as a predictive tool, to the extent that it can be used as the basis for predicting the GDP of the following year, in just the same way as the unemployment rate or any number of other indicators can be, in combination with a bit of understanding of the factors that contribute to these numbers and how they might vary.

And I still don’t understand how you can single out GDP as having zero predictive element to it while accepting that all other indicators (inanimate numbers) are indeed useful as predictors of what to expect down the track.

<< Growing GDP is good. Shrinking it is not good. >>

Please, get over this incredibly simplistic thinking! Growing GDP that is based largely on population growth is not good in the long term. You know; the same population growth that constantly impinges on our environment and demands a greater rate of consumption of non-renewable and potentially renewable resources and (for the umpteenth time) demands a huge amount of duplication of all the basic supporting infrastructure and services without leading to improvements for the pre-existing population.

Yes, this is the same enormous population growth that is working directly against us achieving a sustainable future, and which is constantly increasing the stress-load on our economy and resource base.

It is the primary factor that is giving us a constantly increasing economic turnover and GDP.

So for goodness sake; a growing GDP is NOT a good thing…. for as long as it is intimately connected to a rapidly growing population.

continued

I can sort-of vaguely see how you manage to mislead yourself, though.

You are just so totally duped by the conventional economic setup and the inherent worship of continuous growth that you just can’t see past it and see the inherent fundamental flaws in it.

This is the classic elephant-in-the-living-room scenario. It is just so obvious where constant rapid population growth is leading us in terms of demand/supply balance, economic wellbeing, quality of life and sustainability…. and yet the powers that be can’t see past the ends of their noses. All they can see is the very short-term advantages of more labour and bigger domestic markets.

Come on Pericles, you’ve got to get your head around the population growth factor, and how it affects our whole economic paradigm …and how our population-growth-driven constantly increasing GDP, which is touted to be good and only good, is actually a very long way from good!

I was being polite, Ludwig.

>>Come on Pericles, you’ve got to get your head around the population growth factor<<

I know you have a thing about population control, but I was trying to keep it separate from simple number-crunching.

Which you still don't "get". This is your first problem:

>>So for goodness sake; a growing GDP is NOT a good thing…etc.<<

You have failed to provide one single example that shows declining GDP to be a good thing. Ask Spain how they have enjoyed theirs. Their population numbers, incidentally, are stable.

The other is - still - the predictive power of GDP:

>>Can’t you just accept that GDP is not totally devoid of some use as a predictive tool, to the extent that it can be used as the basis for predicting the GDP of the following year<<

You clearly missed the entire point of the AFL analogy. You cannot predict the half-time score simply by looking the quarter-time scoreboard.

But if you know that the entire mining industry has just shut down (an input), then you can guess that the nation's GDP trend will be downwards.

Similarly, if the whole of Queensland is under water, the whole of NSW ravaged by bush fires, the whole of Victoria and SA in the grip of a long-term drought, and the workers at the mines of WA all hospitalized with cholera, you can be reasonably sure that GDP will take a hit.

Oh, wait. These are all things that "add" to GDP in your calculation, aren't they. Due to the "increased economic turnover as a result of fires, floods, cyclones, illnesses due to smoking or alcohol, etc, etc" that you told us about, all those posts ago.

And that you still trot out today.

>>...including all those [finished goods and services] generated by floods, car accidents, illness….and all of the duplication of everything that goes hand in hand with rapid population growth<<

You still haven't got that complete and utter misconception out of your head after all this time, have you.

But I will keep trying. Consider it my gift to you.