Mfs seem to have forgotten that Chinese GDP PPP is already higher than the US

  • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 months ago

    GDP is bullshit anyway, if a storm hits a city causing 200B of damage the repairs get counted to GDP but the destruction does not.

    It's just a totally phony propaganda number with mutable definitions

      • bazingabrain
        ·
        2 months ago

        what i love about this website is users with stupid funny usernames laying out brute knowledge unprompted, GOOD post.

      • Assian_Candor [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        I don't feel like having a huge convo on this atm but thanks sincerely for your post which makes good points. I just don't want you casting your pearls before swines lol

        One thing I will say is that the fact that finance capital was able to change the way the Russians calculated the size of their economies to include bullshit like stock markets before going on to raid them is exactly what I mean when I say it's a bullshit made-up propaganda measure. Maybe that's not it's sole intended purpose but it is definitely used for that purpose. A dollar spent on a factory in china is counted the same as a dollar made from creating NFT apes.

        It's a fake measure with real consequences in other words. I also don't think western economists know their asses from their elbows, and spending 15 minutes in an econ 101 class illustrates why. Following that shit to it's conclusion basically leads you to ancapistan.

    • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      poor people getting a nutritious meal and shelter does nothing for GDP and therefore bad.

      building a kill house to train heavily armed and militarized police murder squads against your own citizens is good for GDP and therefore good.

      neoliberal economic theory: it's just that easy.

    • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      2 months ago

      I presume that whoever owns the infrastructure will be able to report the losses and so reduce the GDP calculations. Damage to homes will probably also play a part in the calculations as their values are tracked by banks and the government. For smaller personal assets, I don't think the value would be tracked. Also, the 200B damages counting towards GDP could have been spent elsewhere, so the storm wouldn't really increase GDP. It would also reduce personal incomes of city dwellers.

      As much as we like to shit on bourgeois economists, I think even they at least know better than to pull a broken window fallacy with GDP calculations, since that is something you are taught even in econ 101.

      The real thing that (nominal) GDP measures is purchasing power of countries relative to other countries on the international markets at current prices (assuming frictionless trade). I do think it is a useful number to denote a few things, like, 1. is the country in a recession, 2. where does this country stand wrt imperialism, 3. how developed the country is.

      • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        infrastructure is considered a 'stock' you measure it at any point in time.

        GDP is a 'flow', total value of final goods and services measured over a year. so if a country has a bridge worth $100b, that won't be included in GDP since it already exists, it won't be shown when its destroyed/depreciates either. it is only measured for the year its built, no other year.

        so if a storm hits, people lose jobs, homes, reduce consumption, GDP falls. to counter some of the effects, the Government injects money through jobs programs, stimulus checks, ppp loans etc which prevents some of the fall.

        • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
          hexagon
          ·
          2 months ago

          GDP is a ‘flow’, total value of final goods and services measured over a year. so if a country has a bridge worth $100b, that won’t be included in GDP since it already exists, it won’t be shown when its destroyed/depreciates either. it is only measured for the year its built, no other year.

          Yeah, I don't know why I said that the destruction of the bridge would be counted. For GDP metrics, the product/service is assumed to have been consumed entirely in the year it was sold.