What is this nonsense "productivity" and how does one assign a number to it? I think it's largely a monetary artifact. A bunch of money sloshed around the syst

What is this nonsense "productivity" and how does one assign a number to it? I think it's largely a monetary artifact. A bunch of money sloshed around the system. Those transactions inflated GDP. Then, with a lag, official inflation numbers caught up. Now "productivity" is lower than it had been at the peak, just because transients pass through our measurement systems. Something about using the word "productivity" for this particular measurement feels borderline evil. So much that is productive in the vernacular sense is not productive in the GDP sense, and vice versa. Having and raising children is productive (of human beings!), but it only enters GDP stats insofar as you buy formula, diapers, and college tuitions. If you care for your own ageing parents, or if you raise your own children, GDP goes down. But if you take a job and pay somebody else to be a caregiver, then GDP goes up. Consider the extreme example of two women who pay each other to raise each other's children. In Ukraine, wheat production is down. Some unmeasurable production of defense services is way up. Since the soldiers don't pay their squadmates to lay down covering fire, that working-together isn't captured by GDP. We call it "productivity", but it's just a measure of intermediation by money. It'd be like measuring "social activity" as aggregate Facebook likes across the country.