[sickoflibs]

The Peter Schiff/Redistribution Watch Ping. (Washington Bankrupting our Nation by Spending your past, present and future money!)

If you think there is a Santa Claus who is going to get elected in Washington and cut a few taxes and spend a few trillion and jump start the economy, and get our lost money back, this list is not for you.

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[sickoflibs]

> The Peter Schiff/Redistribution Watch Ping. (Washington Bankrupting our Nation by Spending your past, present and future money!)

McArdle uses the example of a new home built during the boom to make the point that all of that homebuilding pumped up the GDP numbers during the boom, but now the "house sits empty while bankers, borrowers, and regulators squabble. One of the 2.4 million excess homes on the market, its only function right now is to bankrupt its owner." Likely without knowing it, the Atlantic's business and economic editor states a point made obvious by Austrians: "GDP does not, and cannot, reflect the waste of enormous effort, and precious natural resources, that went into building something that suddenly no one wants." Yes, all of the malinvestment made GDP soar, but ultimately just wasted capital. As Frank Shostak explains, "The GDP framework cannot tell us whether final goods and services that were produced during a particular period of time are a reflection of real wealth expansion, or a reflection of capital consumption."

[upchuck]

Thank you for posting the entire article. Way too much unnecessary excerpting going on around here.

[Hop A Long Cassidy]

Great post ping.

[wafflehouse]

"GDP does not, and cannot, reflect the waste of enormous effort, and precious natural resources, that went into building something that suddenly no one wants." Yes, all of the malinvestment made GDP soar, but ultimately just wasted capital. As Frank Shostak explains, "The GDP framework cannot tell us whether final goods and services that were produced during a particular period of time are a reflection of real wealth expansion, or a reflection of capital consumption."

this is almost painfully obvious. Not to mention absolutely and completely irrelevant.

lets see.. the government gets judged based on statistics which they control.

its hard to see how anyone could possibly look bad in that case.
its also hard to see how those statistics would convey any useful data.