One of my pet peeves has been the Gross Domestic Product. I’m not against measuring GDP but I think it’s been completely abused, for political reasons, as a measure of what is happening to real people. This isn’t an attack just on Republicans because Democrats misuse the GDP number, too.

The best thing you can say about the GDP is that it tells us the economy is making stuff. But, it tells us nothing about who actually benefits from what’s being made. And it truly clouds our thinking about longer-term problems in the economy such as the lack of affordable health care. Indeed, the insane waste of hundreds of billions of dollars, which hurts competitiveness, is actually a positive factor for GDP because all those dollars spent on sickness and treatment get clocked as growth in GDP. Sickness is a Healthy Economy. George Orwell anyone?

So, I’ve gotten on my soapbox again on this topic in my latest TomPaine Column.

Curious what you’all think?