7 ms·
It's always hard to tell what's really happening behind the GDP growth figures when comparing countries. The population of US and UK are currently increasing ar
by tsiki 13y ago
It's always hard to tell what's really happening behind the GDP growth figures when comparing countries. The population of US and UK are currently increasing around 0.7% a year, while Germany is around 0%. That's a lot of additional GDP growth for both UK and US, even when excluding the fact that immigrants are at their prime working age and usually more beneficial for the GDP than an average citizen. This has a fairly big impact on what's seen on the news. Since depression is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, it's much easier for countries like US and UK to avoid "official" depression, and much easier for news outlets to talk about the "stagnating old Europe" or such; and of course, at the same time the living standard of an average German might be increasing and that of a UK/US citizen decreasing.
- ekianjo 13y agoGDP is anyway an extremely biased thing to look at. There are many ways you can influence it to make it look like you are growing.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tsiki 13y agoAbsolutely, personally I dislike how it's the single most powerful figure for decisionmakers. There have been many alternative measurements developed for measuring overall progress of an economy, but unfortunately they haven't taken much foothold.
- ldng 13y agoWould you care to list the one you find relevant ? I'm interested.
- jjindev 13y agoIf we stick to "economics" without even going to "well-being," I think median net worth is the best bet. But you know, governments find it easier to "book" corporate profits as part of GDP and call it a day.
- tsiki 13y agoNot strictly economic, but personally I quite like the idea of gross national happiness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_happiness On the more economic side, you have something like the Misery Index and its extensions (http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/misery-mena http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/misery-mena). Obviously composite indexes like these have their flaws too, but overall they are more comprehensive than GDP alone.
- yk 13y agoThe problem is not so much GDP, as it is to measure the economy in one float. So GDP is a somewhat good measure, if you want a quick handle on production capacity, for standard of living something like purchase parity median income is better, but tells you nothing about relative strength of exports, etc...
- agilebyte 13y agoDon't worry, if UK quit the EU, you might see quite a few of those immigrants heading to Germany. That should fix that population growth.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoAha - the UKIP double-whammy - I see Mr Farage firing up the policy word docs already.
- raverbashing 13y agoOr they'll just do bilateral agreements to allow people from "the right countries" to be able to work there Like Switzerland
- agilebyte 13y agoThis page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland seems to indicate the Swiss policy to be largely in line with the UK/EU one. Is that no longer the case? I take it a lot of the rhetoric from Middle England has to do with dey tukk ur jerb from bad EU countries like mine so can't see the populace being happy with the same old policy.
- raverbashing 13y agoYes, it is very similar. Just remember that Switzerland is not part of the EU So, theoretically, they're not in the EU, but an EU citizen has similar rights there as in other EU countries.
- kaybe 13y agoWell, they did join the Schengen treaty, so cooperation between the police forces etc can be expected.
- g8oz 13y agoMaybe he's referring to the mainstreaming of nationalist/racist overtones in parts of their political spectrum