this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
44 points (100.0% liked)

Aotearoa / New Zealand

1656 readers
43 users here now

Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general

Rules:

FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom

 

Banner image by Bernard Spragg

Got an idea for next month's banner?

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Anybody who thinks the best way out of a recession is austerity measures needs to have their heads examined.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BalpeenHammer 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Deflection is needed in this case. Nothing good comes from focusing on goods created while ignoring all the societal costs.

Something comes out of it which is comparison with other countries and the past.

Again. If you have an alternative metric that is being used elsewhere and has been used in the past you should state it and we can use it to compare.

Cut down the remaining bush in NZ and selling it off would juice up the GDP, for example.

That's what we do in this country. We cut down trees and sell them, we plow wild lands and turn them into paddocks, we sell milk and fruit. Most of our economy is based on extractive industries.

[–] pluckytree 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

From Simon Kuznets, who invented GDP as a concept:

Economic welfare cannot be adequately measured unless the personal distribution of income is known. And no income measurement undertakes to estimate the reverse side of income, that is, the intensity and unpleasantness of effort going into the earning of income. The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above.

If he can question it, then we certainly should instead of just accepting it because “we’ve always done it this way”.

[–] BalpeenHammer 0 points 8 months ago

If he can question it, then we certainly should instead of just accepting it because “we’ve always done it this way”.

It's like you didn't read anything I wrote at all.