This article is an excerpt from my book “Recessions: Volume I” (Section 1.2). This is a topic that has come up in online conversations. My argument is that one can have multiple definitions of recession, and the concern is: what exactly are we trying to capture with the term “recession”? From what I am seeing in online discourse, some people seem to feel that anything bad about the economy is a “recession,” which is too vague to useful.
Brian, something I struggle with and maybe you can help.
GDP literally stands for "Gross Domestic Product" and is a measure of a nation's production as a means of assessing economic health. However, GDPs largest input metric is consumption (currently 68%) not production.
This means consumption of imported goods paid for via credit is counted as GDP, right? Doesn't this make GDP as a measure of the health of an economy completely fraudulent and props up a leveraged financial economy that increasingly undermines the middle class and wealth equality?
Brian, something I struggle with and maybe you can help.
GDP literally stands for "Gross Domestic Product" and is a measure of a nation's production as a means of assessing economic health. However, GDPs largest input metric is consumption (currently 68%) not production.
This means consumption of imported goods paid for via credit is counted as GDP, right? Doesn't this make GDP as a measure of the health of an economy completely fraudulent and props up a leveraged financial economy that increasingly undermines the middle class and wealth equality?