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Reflection on the economy: the GDP Translated with ChatGPT

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Summary:

My opinion on the GDP and its limitations

Introduction

Generally, on the left, people scream in despair when someone says that the state should be run like a business. Personally, even though I understand this reaction, I think it is unjustified and that indeed adopting an original viewpoint on a situation often allows us to learn a lot about it. But only on the condition that it is done seriously and with a sincere desire to learn, and not superficially and with the sole purpose of having a convincing sophism to constantly hammer out on TV shows.(as is often the case).

What is the GDP

The GDP isfor the nation,the equivalent of a company's turnover. That is to saysum that all the citizens of the country have earned by selling products or services to other citizens during the past year.

As with a company, this is not useless information. But whatever the question we want to answer, it is not sufficient data.

GDP and material well-being of citizens

If we want to know if the employees of a company are earning a good living, the evolution of the turnover or even the average turnover per employee doesn't teach us much.To know the standard of living of employees, what matters is their salary, their working conditions, their assets (with equal salary, a debt-free homeowner does not have the same standard of living as a tenant), their health, the cost of living where they live... In fact, many things that only have a very thin relationship with the turnover.

That's why all the columnistsThe text you provided, "se", is already in English. It is Spanish for "if" or "itself", and its exact translation would depend on the context. However, as a standalone word, "se" does not form a complete sentence or thought in English.plant saying that people's standard of living is going well because the GDP is increasing, or that it is going badly because itdrop. The Spanish government, Macron, or Genocide Joe have claimed that things are getting better by showing their good growth scores, but this convinces nobody because these are not the right metrics.Especially in the USAwhereCertainly, the GDP is increasing, but all other indicators are deep in the red (the number of homeless people is increasing, the number of people receiving food stamps is increasing, the level of education is decreasing, ...). That the GDP is increasing does not mean that wages are increasing. Worse, it can happen at the expense of people's standard of living (and that's what's happening in the USA).

In Spain, growth through tourism means transforming residential homes into tourist residences, thus exacerbating the housing crisis, resulting in people losing their homes. In return, a sector is developed that offers precarious jobs, poorly paid, with poor working conditions, and environmentally unsustainable (I am of course talking about the airplanes that bring tourists, but also about depriving people and agriculture of water to be able to fill the tourists' pools).In short, tourism creates no wealth that can be redistributed and improve the standard of living of the population, but on the other hand, it costs. It is a destructive growth for the population level. It is an activity that, if we did the accounts, increases the turnover but reduces the profits, because it is not profitable.

We need to stop with the GDP. It is a relevant indicator during the Thirty Glorious years but not anymore. Do not confuse the temperature with the thermometer.

GDP and wealth of the country

Often, it is said that the GDP represents the wealth produced by a country. But in the same way that turnover does not represent the wealth produced by a company, the GDP does not really represent the wealth produced by a country. Or rather, it represents, as its name suggests, the gross wealth. However, what interests us in knowing the wealth of a country is the net wealth. That is, the value of what we have produced, minus the value of what it cost us to produce this wealth.

Indeed, imagine a company that would seek to maximize its turnover, not caring about its costs and therefore its profit. It would go straight to ruin. And yet, this is how states are currently managed. We look at whether a project will increase the GDP, but we don't care about how much it will cost.

The most famous example is that of natural disasters. There is no consensus on this, but according to some economists, in certain cases, aNatural disaster causes an increase in GDP, as what has been produced to repair the damage from the disaster is counted in the GDP, but not the cost of the disaster.

But we could find plenty of other examples,much more concrete,like health. Indeed, healthcare contributes positively to the GDP, but not the loss of the worker's health. It only counts if he would have produced more if he had been in good health, whereas in fact, even if he is retired, it's a loss of wealth.Therefore, certain health-improving policies, such as the fight against tobacco, could lead to a decrease in the GDP. Tobacco production counts in the GDP and what will be produced instead might have less value.To be of less value. However, some of the positive health effects of its policies will not be taken into account.

And one could also criticize the somewhat foolish way in which GDP is used to decide economic policies. Have we ever seen a company measure the value of its activities solely in terms of its revenue, without worrying about the link with its other activities?

If that was the case, Nintendo would stop building consoles, as it's the games that make them money. Supermarkets would stop selling basic products like pasta or gasoline, as they make little profit or turnover on them.

The problem is that even if they do not generate much revenue or profits, these activities are necessary for others to generate them. It is necessary for a supermarket to sell basic products for customers to come, and it is necessary to sell consoles in order to earn a percentage on all the games that are purchased or to push captive consumers to buy Nintendo games rather than those of the competition.

And with a country, it's the same. Even if a sector generates little GDP, it may be thanks to it that other activities can function.

For example, in the context of assessing the effects of global warming, economists say that global warming will just have an impact on agriculture, and that agriculture is 3% of GDP. So even if a warming of 4°C causes a halving of agricultural production, it would only decrease the global GDP by 1.5%. But, it is obvious that if we halve the global agricultural production, the rest of the GDP will have some problems.

And it is seriously with this reasoning that some economists (such as Nordhaus) argue that a global warming of 3°C would be optimal, as the necessary investments to further reduce warming will never be profitable.

All these factors mean that the GDP is, in developed economies, a very poor indicator of the wealth produced.

GDP and power of the state

To know the health of a company, same,The turnover is rarely the most relevant data. For that, oWe prefer to look at the profits. The margin rate, investment needs, brand image, sector outlook, the company's moat, its 5-year strategy, its market shares, ... I think all the people who invest in the stock market know how useful knowing the turnover and its evolution is, but not decisive.

In a new and therefore growing sector, one can content oneself with looking at the turnover, because the priority is not the profits, but to be the first to carve out the lion's share in a new sector. This, for the state, is equivalent to being in a state undergoing industrialization, as was the case in France during the Glorious Thirty or in Asian countries during the last forty years.But afterwards, the turnover becomes secondary.for a company (and therefore the GDP should be for an already industrialized state or one that is not in the process of industrializing).

When increasing a country's GDP consists of attracting more tourism or increasing the number of people working in domestic jobs like Uber drivers or Delivery couriers, or the number of imports of goods from China, how does this increase its ability to fund the army, social security? How does this increase its ability to enforce its borders to its neighbours or its interests in international negotiations?Russia has the GDP of Spain, but who would be crazy enough to believe that SpainAs a language model AI, I need a specific text in a known language to translate into English. Please provide a text for translation.would not beAs a language model developed by OpenAI, I need text in a recognizable language provided to be able to translate. "Ce" is a French word that means "this" or "it" in English. If you provide me with a complete sentence or paragraph, I would be able to help with translation much more effectively.What is the tenth of Russia's influence? Who would be crazy enough to prsummerCould Spain be able to militarily stand up to Russia if it had to confront it alone (that is, without the help of its allies)?

Conclusion

And we could do the same with all the questions to which we claim to answer with the GDP, such as the ability to solve unemployment or to get into debt.

The GDP is a useful piece of data provided that it is put in its place. Numbers are like pictures and words. They are tools that do what we ask them. In the hands of propagandists, they become tools of massive and acknowledged disinformation, deliberately what we want them to be.dire. But in the hands of people sincerely seeking the truth, they are the most demanding of allies, forcing us to face the truths that we would have preferred to ignore. It's up to us to question them well.

The text to be translated is missing. Can you please provide it?

Here are some sources for those who want to go further or check that I haven't said too much nonsense:

The 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress

Takeaways-Trends-2023-Homeless-Assessment-Report

facts about homelessness

The results of the NAEP 2024 Mathematics and Reading Assessments for Grades 4 and 8 are here!

What the data says about food stamps in the U.S.

ESTIMATION OF THE IMPACT OF DISASTERS

Impact of natural disasters on economic activity

Natural disasters and economic dynamics: application to tropical cyclones

eloi-laurent-leaving-growth-is-returning-to-reality

On the measurement of economic wealth.

Services: The productivity in question

Environment - The work of Nordhaus, Nobel Prize in Economics, under fire from critics

The-housing-crisis-in-Europe-is-worsening-in-Spain-it-is-a-problem-with-multiple-facets.

In-the-Canaries-over-tourism-exasperates-the-population