GDP is actually a great example. It's actually very easy to increase a country's GDP if that's the only thing you care about. You just borrow more money and th

GDP is actually a great example. It's actually very easy to increase a country's GDP if that's the only thing you care about. You just borrow more money and then spend it. GDP is literally a measure of money changing hands inside a country. If you borrow as much money as you can and then spend it on things like infrastructure projects, you can instantly increase the GDP. Banks see the growing GDP figure and assume that its a good thing and let you borrow more money. That is, until they don't. This happened with Brazil in the 1970's, when the oil crisis made Brazil believe that they were going to face a downturn. To overcome this, they borrowed money and went on an infrastructure spending spree. This made Brazil look like an economic miracle, growing when everyone else was struggling. This encouraged more banks to lend to Brazil. The problem is the money was spent on short term growth instead of things that would more systematically grow the economy over the long term. The government (and lending banks) was substituting year-to-year GDP numbers for economic health. Once credit tightened in the early 1980's, Brazil's growth plummeted. This is of course an over simplification, but I think we are seeing similar problems in modern economies. People often cite China's GDP growth, but they don't balance that out with the debt they are taking on in order to finance that growth.