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And all we have to show for it is a 1600% increase in GDP.
by devnullbrain 3y ago
And all we have to show for it is a 1600% increase in GDP.
- Paul-Craft 3y agoAnd vastly exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet, leading to ecological and likely societal collapse. Thanks, capitalism!
- platformdecay 3y agoGDP ... denominated in fiat currency
- CSMastermind 3y agoInflation adjusted the US GDP grew from $5.30 trillion in 1970 to $22.67 trillion in 2023. Which is about a 4x increase in real terms. https://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table/by-year#:~:text=Dec%2031%2C%201972%205.91%20trillion%20Dec%2031%2C,1971%205.53%20trillion%20Dec%2031%2C%201970%205.30%20trillion https://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table/by-ye...
- VirusNewbie 3y agowhy would you adjust for inflation, what we are talking about would mean adjusting for M2.
- Dylan16807 3y agoWhy would you adjust for M2? Inflation exaggerates GDP growth. M2 doesn't. If you measure a country and M2 and GDP go up together, that's important to know, but you don't "adjust for M2" and pretend that GDP didn't actually go up.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoHmm, let me ask you this. It we double the money supply because say, banks are allowed to loan more to each other, but that money doesn’t make it to the average consumer, does CPI go up and does GDP go up?
- Dylan16807 3y agoWe're not changing anything else with businesses? I wouldn't expect those numbers to change very much then. Certainly far less than 2x.
- VirusNewbie 3y agook, maybe too abstract an example. If a bank makes a loan (creating new money) to loan to some rich guy, who decides to pay 1B to buy a bunch of Microsoft stock, that counts as growing the GDP, even if the majority of the money just stays in the financial sector and never drives up the price of anything measured by CPI.
- Dylan16807 3y agoGDP measures goods and services, not stock purchases. A few trillion dollars of stocks bouncing back and forth don't change it at all.
- rvba 3y agoThere would be nothing wrong if money wasnt created out of thin air to cover the GDP increase. It's basically the central bank stealing from people and claimimg that low inflation somehow helps. It doesnt. Its's a hidden tax on everyone, that eats GDP growth.
- dlp211 3y agoWe (mostly) don't create money out of thin air. We borrow it. This obligation acts as a limit on money supply inflation. Also, slight, but mostly consistent inflation is far better for everyone than what the US went through in it's first 150 years as a country. The average American household is worth more than $1MM and the median is close to $200k. All time highs, even adjusting for all the inflation. https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-year/ https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-year/
- rvba 3y agoWhy would small inflation be good for anyone bar the centtal bank? Small inflation is ignored by everyone. If there was no artificial inflation (central bank racket) you could ignore it as well.
- dog_boxer72 3y agoInflation encourages investment because if you just sit on your money it gets eaten away by inflation. Once you’re Oprah-rich inflation is the rate at which you’re losing net worth. This is my non-economist understanding.
- kelnos 3y agoI do wonder if this conventional wisdom is actually true, though. Somewhat relatedly, there was once an idea that if you lower taxes for rich people, they'll invest more, and those tax savings will trickle down to the middle and lower classes and be a boon for them. But we know it doesn't actually work like that.
- 3y ago
- samatman 3y agoNumber go up!
- briantakita 3y agoLawyers & economists contribute more to GDP than farmers...yet most lawyers & economists are a net negative in real terms while farmers provide food, essential for life. If GDP was the end all be all of measurements, why is Russia winning the war despite having a fraction of GDP compared to its western opponents? Sure seems like the wrong things are being measured...and rewarded.
- brankoB 3y agoGDP is a good measure of how the wealthy are doing, not so much your average citizen.
- zerbinxx 3y agoWell sure, but in Russia’s case, the average income is incredibly low and their wealth disparity is even more extreme than in the USA. I don’t know how any of that relates to the war point
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago> Why is Russia winning the war despite having a fraction of GDP compared to its western opponents? This was a huge eye-opener for me, the fact that we are spending 20x more on the military industrial complex and yet it cannot supply enough shells and bullets for the war, to me, indicates that all of our posturing is a bad joke. Either there is huge waste and abuse in the system, or we've literally set Ukraine up to lose.
- kelnos 3y agoThrowing money and war materiel at Ukraine doesn't ensure victory. Clearly the lack of it will ensure failure. But weapons are mostly only as good as the training of the people wielding them. On top of that, there's fear of nuclear weapons taking the stage. If the US military went head to head with the Russian military, and we didn't have to worry about MAD, I think it's reasonable to assume that the US would win. But is the Ukrainian military, supplied with Western military supplies (and even Western military advisors), a better fighting force than the Russian military, even with a home-field advantage? Unclear. And on the other hand... when the war started, a lot of people assumed Russia would achieve their objectives within a few weeks, or at most a month or two. Ukraine has turned out to be much more capable than initially expected. > ...and yet it cannot supply enough shells and bullets for the war It absolutely can, but politics, as usual, gets in the way. And, as I said, shells and bullets are necessary, but not sufficient.