GDP is a False Indicator

One of the major economic indicators that the government and Wall Street depend on, especially to tell us whether the country is in a recession or not, is the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). However, there are many who feel this indicator is inaccurate in reporting the real effect of the economy on people, especially people's happiness. The GPI (Genuine progress Indicator) was developed as one better and more accurate alternative, among others.

If you look at these two indicators as of late 2008, assuming that a steady decrease in the GDP for two consecutive quarters indicated a recession as Bush defined it, you'll find that even then, despite the terrible state of the economy with it's massive foreclosures and record unemployment, the GDP did not yet indicate we were in a recession, or even a downturn. Looking at the GDP, we were steadily growing our economy at a healthy clip. Two things stand out for me in this distinction.

The GDP includes Crime as a indicator of economic growth (as explained in World Changing online magazine - http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007993.html).
The GDP includes war and defense spending and it's industries. The GPI includes neither of these. Without defense spending, along with a few much lesser expenses like crime, we see the real picture of the downturn our economy is taking while boosting the military laden GDP, shown in this chart from Redefining Progress a public think tank.

Crime is a growth industry as is war. But growth of who and what? Are these something we want to measure as indicators of growth in our country?

Redefining Progress (http://www.rprogress.org/sustainability_indicators/genuine_progress_indicator.ht...) notes that the GPI has been flat since the 70s. Some charts, like The Progress Report, show a downturn in the GDI.

So what does defense have to do with it?

Defense spending goes into weapons that are expendable. When we go to war we take massive stocks of equipment and basically throw them away, or blow them up. What production or constructive result comes out of war that benefits U.S. citizens? Nothing. Any of this equipment recovered after the war is pretty much beyond it's useful life. Time to order the new models. In fact, the defense industry is notorious for, not only overspending with inflated budgets, but also for having state of the art equipment. All of this expense is more or less for stuff we trash.

Read "The Three Trillion Dollar War" http://threetrilliondollarwar.com
Do something: http://stopwar.lafilmonline.com//?p=39