Let's save us some time on this, Ludwig.

>>Can you just tell me exactly, succinctly, what you think I don’t understand about GDP<<

It would be much, much quicker if you explained what you do know about GDP.

If you could not even recognize the signals in Adam Smith's opening remarks, we are not going to be spending too long on this exercise, I suspect.

IT OCCURS TO ME/TO ASK
DOES THE SHARE TRADING
[like flash-trades/get recorded/by volume/or money turnover or proffits?

Shades of 1930 in Wall Street Banks’ Dark Pools?
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/07/shades-of-1930-in-wall-street-banks-dark-pools/

On June 2 of this year, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a self-regulator of Wall Street’s broker-dealers, dropped a bombshell. For the first time, FINRA released trading data for Wall Street’s dark pools – unregistered stock exchanges that the SEC recklessly allows to trade stocks without making the bids and offers public, along with many other details.

The bombshell, that mainstream business media has yet to comprehend, was that the same mega Wall Street banks whose share prices crashed in the 2008 financial crisis are today not only running dark pools for stock trading but they’re trading the stock of their own corporate parents – to the tune of tens of millions of shares a week. Those Wall Street banks include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
http://patriotrising.com/2014/07/07/badly-screwed/
What could possibly go wrong in this arrangement?

http://investmentwatchblog.com/governments-from-around-the-world-including-western-islamic-asian-and-african-nations-admit-they-carry-out-false-flag-terror/

http://rinf.com/alt-news/usa-news/profiteers-cashing-nations-catastrophic-water-crisis/

soon we can tax thought
http://www.intellihub.com/coming-soon-tsa-mind-reading-scanners-catch-terrorists/

think while your still able to do it for free[freely/feely]
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/enron-2-0-wall-street-wants-manipulate-state-energy-markets-just-like-manipulates-every-market.html

http://investmentwatchblog.com/video-sorry-we-spied-on-you-five-interesting-corporate-apologies/

working on the number/watchers
http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/keepwatch.jpg

Ok, maybe that was a little too dismissive Ludwig. But it was late.

>>Can you just tell me exactly, succinctly, what you think I don’t understand about GDP<<

The theme that you come back to time and again is this idea that there are "good" and "bad" components to GDP. That alone demonstrates a depth of misunderstanding that is difficult to move past. All the people who work in those areas you call "bad", such as firefighters, doctors, nurses, builders etc. are all part of the economy, and buy goods and services from shops, insurance companies etc. You cannot arbitrarily dismiss their activities as being detrimental to the economy, they are simply part of it.

This flows into your misunderstanding about the impact of adverse events, such as bushfires etc. They are in themselves detrimental to the economy, and this shows up in a reduction of, not an increase of, GDP.

(Reminder: you still haven't withdrawn your original assertion, that "GDP. It is a most terribly flawed economic indicator, which adds all sorts of negative factors to the positive side of the ledger, such as increased economic turnover as a result of fires, floods, cyclones, illnesses due to smoking or alcohol")

The second major roadblock you have is this concept that GDP is somehow used as a forecasting tool. It is not. It cannot be.

Put together, these demonstrate clearly that you are unable to grasp the simple fact that GDP is a measurement tool of the general prosperity of our nation. Higher is therefore better - as you can find countless examples in recent years where entire economies have been forced to take drastic remedial action, when their GDP diminishes.

If you were able to give examples where your theories on GDP can be demonstrated, rather than operate entirely on the emotional generalizations about how we just have to "look around and see how bad it is", we might just get someplace.

Hahaha. Just as I thought Pericles. You can’t even accede to my simple request, to just cut through the crap and tell me exactly what your issue really is. Surely my request is directly in line with what you are trying to achieve here, isn’t it?

I have to conclude that you are just full of bluff. It is all just another diversion from one who has been totally trumped, who knows that GDP is fundamentally and critically flawed but is never going to admit it.

Tell me what it is that you think I don’t understand about GDP, oh great guru……please.

Come on… after all the exchanges that we have had on this thread, how can you really say that I don’t understand GDP? It is nonsensical.

I’ll tell you what I think you understand about it….

It is a simple number, made up of all economic activity within the financial year lead up to the release of that number. The only thing that is not absolutely added to GDP is imports. Exports are included, minus imports. So, only the net export total is included in GDP. Other than that, there are simply no considerations about what should or could be subtracted. And there is no thought in your mind that anything else should be subtracted.

You think that a higher GDP is better and a lower one is worse, and a falling GDP is very bad, end of story.

You take GDP as an indicator of economic growth, and per-capita GDP as a better indicator how our economy is travelling with respect to the growing population. You seem to think that economic growth, and especially per-capita economic growth equals prosperity.

And you don’t look at GDP in the wider context of the folly of never-ending rapid growth, the ever-increasing demand for everything, the ever-more rapidly shrinking non-renewable and potentially renewable resource base, or the sustainability of our society.

What else can I say?

Pericles, you might want to look at the article by Allison Orr, published on OLO today:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16474

< Often the calculation of dividing GDP by the population is held up as the definitive picture. It's a neat number, easily compared among countries and across time. But it is a crude measurement, giving a one-dimensional picture of one aspect of a nation's economy. It doesn't come close to illustrating the real state of a nation. >

< If we want to build a fair, inclusive society, then we need to value things beyond their dollar value. We need to be measuring government policies using multiple metrics and indexes to have a full understanding of their social impact. This will not only ensure our continued prosperity, but will enrich our democracy. Our political leaders are more than just bookkeepers for our tax dollars and our public discourse should be about more than economics. We want a real narrative that can inspire us. >

<<..The second major/roadblock you have is this concept that GDP is somehow used as a forecasting tool...It is not...It cannot be.>>

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=GDP+is+a+measurement+tool+&

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_GDP
&#8206;

GDP is designed*to measure/the market value..[of production/that flows through..]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
&in 1944,
GDP became the main tool for measuring a country's economy.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/RioPlus20/Beyond-GDP.pdf
Ahead of Rio+20, the need to (finally) go beyond GDP has grown stronger. This was also acknowledged in
the “zero draft” negotiation document, which in January 2012 claimed to “recognise the limitations of GDP as
a measure of well-being” and suggested to “develop and strengthen indicators complementing GDP that
integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions in a balanced manner”.
New ways of measuring progress and wealth could mean true progress for sustainability, because what we
measure affects what we do, and if our measurements are flawed, decisions get distorted.
GDP was never meant to be a measure of well-being or development. It’s an indicator that grows by the
number of car crashes, purchase of private guns, funerals, loss of primary forests, overfishing, and so forth. It
also doesn’t account for the impacts our current choices will have in the future, which is a key question for
sustainability. Yet, a myopic focus on GDP growth has been – and still remains – at the core of what human
development is perceived to be by political leaders.
The criticism of GDP is as old as the tool itself, but the economic crisis – coupled with looming resource
scarcity and multiple environmental challenges – has created new momentum for adopting better
measurement tools and going “beyond GDP”, a slogan frequently used today even by the World Bank. The
UN, OECD, UNEP and others are all developing and testing different measuring tools.



<<>.Put together, these demonstrate clearly that you are unable to grasp the simple fact that GDP is a measurement tool of the general prosperity of our nation. >>

LOL

<<..Higher is therefore better>>

HIGH ROLLING
double up till ya win

lets talk of special drawing rights/
[the unspoken/new world currency*]
sdr/armogeddon...2hour/mark
http://rss.infowars.com/20140707_Mon_Alex.mp3

lesT we forget/the secreT bailouts/
too bIg to fail/ONLY got bigger/DEFAULTS.