Economics is designed for the purpose of propsgating this confusion. For many economists, "distribution" is of no scientific interest.
If anything, I'd think that the GOP touting how good the economy is while people are feeling insecure about their personal situation would make them seem out of touch and breed resentment.
I knew that period of darkness was coming, and yet its arrival was more horrifying than anything I could have ever imagined.
I grew so tired of thinking about blogging things and then finding out Yglesias had already said something better-organized about the same topic that I've decided to just outsource most of my political opinions. that way I can just check his blog first rather than bother to reason things out for myself, and I have more time to think about creme brulee. mmm, I just had the most wonderfulest coconut creme brulee ever for the second night in a row. the custard was so superlative and so removed from the concept of egginess, as if all the eggs had sublimed away into dense, creamy perfection. plus a crackling shell of melted sugar on top. the only fly in the ointment is that burning sugar smells like drugs cooking up, but I soldier on past these trifling problems.
Mmm. How do you make coconut creme brulee? Coconut cream in the custard, or coconut meat grated into a conventional recipe, or both?
We all eventually have our "fuck it, let Yglesias handle the politics" moments.
Given that we now have RL access to him through Becks, I think we should ask her to hold him down and give him noogies for being smarter than we are. This is, I believe, a just and reasonable means of dealing with an otherwise intolerable situation.
Yo LB, what am I? Anyway, violence has no effect. You can distract him with BtVS, though.
9 - I think they're implying that I have a better chance of being able to take Yglesias than you do.
sorry, 'smasher. you could totally kick ezra klein's ass, though.
6: LB, it seems as if they just put freshly grated coconut in the ordinary creme brulee mixture, because the taste was mild. they also served it in a very shallow, lozenge-shaped dish, so that there would be more surface for the sugar to caramelize.
9: I was thinking that you were probably more on his side. And, of course, that Becks has a better chance of taking him than you do.
you could totally kick ezra klein's ass, though.
No way. Last fall, Ezra and his flying elbows gave black eyes to two players in our Doughboy League. Now everyone's scared to play touch football.
I've never understood the media & politician's fascination with GDP: at best it is loosely correlated with quality of life.
It's easy, and doesn't require paying attention to how unimportant little people are actually doing, and it's conventional to call the GDP 'the economy' in sentences like 'The economy is growing'.
14: You are assuming anyone is concerned with quality of life to begin with. The GDP is important because it is our score. All reporting is ultimately sports reporting. Who's ahead, who's behind, what's the score. You can't do sports reporting unless there is a single, unambiguous score. The GDP is our national score, the same way approval ratings are a politician's score and stock prices are a company's score.
Using some other measure as our nation's score would defeat the whole purpose of keeping score. Quality of life is difficult to measure, and requires you to answer philosophical questions. You can't keep score that way.
You might as well judge a politician by his wisdom and judgement, or a company on whether it produces something that on the whole benefits humanity.
15- Equating GDP with quality of life is at best a shorthand, likely misleading in many ways. Equating GDP with 'the economy' isn't a shorthand at all - that's what GDP is, a measure of gross activity in our national economy. It's actually quite a good measure for this limited purpose. I don't think I understand your objection.
17: Perhaps on its own, the equation is fine. But when you combine it with the premise that growth is good, it creates the false impression that all economic activity is equally good for all people equally.
17: Perhaps on its own, the equation is fine. But when you combine it with the premise that growth is good, it creates the false impression that all economic activity is equally good for all people equally.
Sorry I double posted. The dolphin spooked me.
"Gross activity in our national economy" is not the same thing as "our national economy". I can picture a world in which we had an absolutely huge GDP devoted almost entirely to fighting off giant mutant lobsters attacking us from every navigable body of water in or near the US. While GDP would be high, that fact, alone, wouldn't say anything interesting about the economic state of affairs in the US -- you'd really have to know about the giant mutant lobsters.
"The economy" is interesting only as a way of describing the well-being and access to goods and services of people living in our society. While GDP is one number that tells us something about that, by itself it doesn't always say all that much. If you want to predict people's voting behavior, you need to know more about how they're doing than GDP alone will tell you.
21: "giant mutant lobsters attacking us from every navigable body of water in or near the US" s/b "islamofascism"
The dolphin spooked me
Good luck getting any sleep tonight.
LB- I more or less agree with your whole second paragraph (the "only" bothers me, as does the implication that "well-being" and "access to goods and services" are related, but I'll let those pass), but I don't really understand your first paragraph at all and am pretty sure it's nonsense.
WW II, instead of lobsters. Huge GDP, but a lot of what was being produced was shipped overseas to explode. Goods and services were hard for Americans to buy. If you looked only at the GDP, you'd expect consumers to be wallowing in stuff; if you looked at the fact that no one in the US had had a new car for five years, you'd expect a low GDP. You need more information about what kind of a high GDP economy you have to tell if it means easy or hard times for most people in the economy.
(IANAEconomist -- what I've said above may be wrong, but I'm pretty certain it's not nonsense.)
Tell me more about these giant mutant lobsters.
as does the implication that "well-being" and "access to goods and services" are related
And I don't get this at all. They aren't identical, but if I can't buy food, clothing, and shelter, my well-being is shot to hell.
The problem is that, as usual, the economists are getting the normative and the descriptive all buggered up. If by "the economy" you simply mean the sum total of all the economic transactions that take place, Brock is right. As a purely descriptive matter, it takes a lot of buying and selling to fight off the giant mutant lobsters/nazis/islamofascists. But, of course, we don't just use the term "the economy" in this value neutral sense. The economy is Our Wealth and Prosperity, and if it is big, then we are doing something right. Once you attach the value of Our Wealth and Prosperity to the morally neutral sum of all buying and selling, you get world view of mainstream economists. It also suddenly makes sense to be out there inventing enemies to fight--giant mutant lobsters, vague terrorist threats--so that we can boost GDP.
Here's a list of criticisms of the GDP, including most of the ones I know about and several I'd never heard before.
Okay, but even from a purely descriptive point of view, a wartime economy (where all sorts of things are produced only to blow up) is different from a peacetime economy with exactly the same GDP. (And also, of course, two different peacetime economies with the same GDP can be very different.) GDP isn't a full description of an economy, it's one economic statistic.
But I agree with everything you said about the difference between normative and descriptive.
You need more information about what kind of a high GDP economy you have to tell if it means easy or hard times for most people in the economy.
This, of course. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying that GDP is a (good) measure of the total economy, so those two terms are and ought to be generally interchangeable.
I'd say it's the non-economists who are getting the normative and descriptive all buggered up. GDP is a completely descriptive measure of the the economy. Attaching greater and higher values to it -- as an end-all measure of our national well-being, etc. -- is a lay mistake (frequently committed by journalists and pundits).
GDP measures only the total size of the economy. It doesn't tell you anything about composition, or about distribution.
Comity?
This, of course. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just saying that GDP is a (good) measure of the total economy, so those two terms are and ought to be generally interchangeable.
I'm not getting your meaning here. There are important economic statistics other than GDP. GDP alone won't tell you the values of those statistics -- in different factual circumstances the GDP can be exactly the same, but other economic statistics can differ broadly. While I could see making an argument (and it would probably be a convincing one) that GDP was the best single number with which to characterize the state of the economy, I can't see claiming that GDP alone gives a complete picture of the economy unless you're defining economy in a circular fashion as GDP.
"anything about composition, or about distribution." s/b "anything of actual human interest"
It doesn't tell you anything about composition, or about distribution.
Comity, but composition and distribution are economic facts, which are necessary to accurately describe an economy. It is normative to say that inequality is bad, but it is pure hardnosed academic economics to say that an economy with high inequality is different from one with low inequality.
33- LB, I'm not in any way trying to claim that GDP presents a "complete picture" of the economy. I've tried to be very explicit that it doesn't. Your original comment said "...it's conventional to call the GDP 'the economy' in sentences like 'The economy is growing'", and my point is that GDP and 'the economy' are in fact interchangeable there. If GDP is growing then the economy is growing; if the economy is growing then GDP is growing. GDP is a measure of overall economic activity, and its change is a measure of economic growth.
I disagree with 34, but haven't the heart to fight it now.
We're in agreement then. I've just been trying to make clear that because "GDP" and "Economy" may be interchangable in a given sentence doesn't make them synonyms. There's a lot to be said about the economy that isn't captured by the GDP, but lazy writers forget that because they treat them as synonyms.
The horse was still twitching a tiny bit.
31: I think that economists slip slly back and forth between the normative and the descriptive all the time. Many of them are very happy to work as pundits and poplicy advisers, and the advice they give normally shows no care at all for the normative-descriptive distinction. At most you'll get a hurried fine-print disclaimer.
But whenever they're challenged, they'll whip out the distinction and call their challenger an idiot for not understanding it.
But you're sticking with "poplicy"?
I do think you're right, and even more than economists, I think writers making economically based political arguments do that sort of thing too.