GDP is a stupid way to measure the real economy. In the current state of the society economic performance is measured in the amount of labor needed to secure a decent retirement. A large part of that is the ownership of the home in which one will retire.
As technological innovation and real capital development improve the productivity of labor then real wages should rise and the ability of the productive sector of the economy age 20 to 60 to support the entire population including the non productive young and old is enhanced. This claim concerning the productive sector and the dependent sectors is a matter of objective reality.
Bean counting stupidity concerning the lack of workers in the next 20 years assumes that increased productivity does not exist or that the gains from the increase are taken as economic rent by the owners of the means of production. Stilt brained conservatives are elected to the seats of power to insure that progressive ventures are not undertaken or that the gains are not distributed to the producers. This is self fulfilling prophecy.
My own measure of economic performance would be the average price of an acre of land as compared to what I call rudimentary wage (the wage paid to one educated in the FREE educational system).
It is the change in this relationship that measures the actual performance of the overall economy. As the average price of land falls then so too is the economy getting better.
With respect to land values, I recall back in the 1970s a Harvard Business School professor (now deceased) who served on a board of directors that I also served on said that property taxes on undeveloped and underdeveloped land should be high to encourage more development. He did not address environmental issues that might clash with this.
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GDP is a stupid way to measure the real economy. In the current state of the society economic performance is measured in the amount of labor needed to secure a decent retirement. A large part of that is the ownership of the home in which one will retire.
As technological innovation and real capital development improve the productivity of labor then real wages should rise and the ability of the productive sector of the economy age 20 to 60 to support the entire population including the non productive young and old is enhanced. This claim concerning the productive sector and the dependent sectors is a matter of objective reality.
Bean counting stupidity concerning the lack of workers in the next 20 years assumes that increased productivity does not exist or that the gains from the increase are taken as economic rent by the owners of the means of production. Stilt brained conservatives are elected to the seats of power to insure that progressive ventures are not undertaken or that the gains are not distributed to the producers. This is self fulfilling prophecy.
My own measure of economic performance would be the average price of an acre of land as compared to what I call rudimentary wage (the wage paid to one educated in the FREE educational system).
It is the change in this relationship that measures the actual performance of the overall economy. As the average price of land falls then so too is the economy getting better.
With respect to land values, I recall back in the 1970s a Harvard Business School professor (now deceased) who served on a board of directors that I also served on said that property taxes on undeveloped and underdeveloped land should be high to encourage more development. He did not address environmental issues that might clash with this.
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