Sunday, January 10, 2010

When GDP Fails, You Can Fantasize

GDP stands for gross domestic product. It’s a measure of a country’s economic output, the value of all its goods and services produced. It therefore represents the country’s standard of living.

The French GDP is falling, so they want to substitute their vacation time and other assumed “joie de vivre” as an additive. After all, it can be embarrassing when the French have to compare their left-oriented economy to those more attuned to capitalism.

Why not come up with some phony, arbitrary adjustment that assumes your way of living is superior to others? You may take the month of August off for holidays. So you come up with an arbitrary value from under your hat, (or is it chapeau).

But what about the lack of services during August? And those constant, paralyzing public union strikes?

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