10 ms·
My personal opinion here. For a long time GDP and standard of living/well-being of a society have been correlated that people started to think that these are t
by jacek 3y ago
My personal opinion here.
For a long time GDP and standard of living/well-being of a society have been correlated that people started to think that these are the same. These two are becoming more and more detached each year with progressing inequality. To the point that GDP now tells us very little about a country.
For example Bermuda. The high GDP per capita incomes is fueled by offshore financial services, but that does not translate to personal wealth of the citizens. And Qatar. More than 50% of population are immigrants working mostly in low-paying jobs often in terrible conditions. They generate wealth, but they are not considered citizens. Finally the elephant in the room - USA. GDP per capita means jack shit if half of the wealth belongs to a few people.
- epolanski 3y agoGDP being a weak and misleading metric has been known to be a factor from many decades. It's just an easy and lazy measurement most can (or think they) understand.
- jakub_g 3y agoApart from money not being everything, it's also much "averages vs medians" (vs distributions) again. People love using averages because they're a single number, and easy to calculate. Medians are more difficult to calc, and distributions and percentiles are something most people are never taught, and it's no longer a single number which is easy to (artificially) compare.
- chrisweekly 3y agoHuh? Mean ("average"), median and mode are each a single number that provides a distinct measurement of central tendency.