[Alberta's Child]

Take out the government spending -- particularly the DEFICIT spending -- and adjust the figure for our import/export trade imbalance and you'll see the problem.

A retiree who gets an average Social Security check of $1,400 every month and spends every penny of it is "contributing" $16,800 to the nation's GDP this year but is producing nothing. This number has to be stripped out of the equation when the U.S. government is borrowing $1.2 trillion every year to keep this person's check coming every month.

[SoCal Pubbie]

So now you’re admitting that productivity has not declined, but you’re moving the goalposts by wanting to take government spending out of GDP to make a point other then a measure of productivity.