China builds physical objects for the world.
The US sells intellectual property, financial services, with far less manufacturing.
So no, CO2 per GDP is not a useful measure.
When your hospital or HMO decides to jack up the price of a medication, that’s measured as an increase in GDP. When your car insurance goes up, that’s GDP going up.
Information has tons of value. I’m not a fan of copyright but I also don’t agree that physical products are inherently more valuable.
Also regarding insurance raises and other price raises. Prices usually rise when demand rises. So it’s a measure of what people want. Much better than just measuring pure survival. Now if all prices rose, that would be inflation, and GDP accounts for that. But if the price of one product rises while the prices of others fall, that’s just shifting consumer demand. Of course GDP isn’t perfect since there can be monopolies, oligopolies, and state-controlled companies, but imo it’s better than using population as a measure.
China builds physical objects for the world. The US sells intellectual property, financial services, with far less manufacturing.
So no, CO2 per GDP is not a useful measure.
When your hospital or HMO decides to jack up the price of a medication, that’s measured as an increase in GDP. When your car insurance goes up, that’s GDP going up.
Information has tons of value. I’m not a fan of copyright but I also don’t agree that physical products are inherently more valuable.
Also regarding insurance raises and other price raises. Prices usually rise when demand rises. So it’s a measure of what people want. Much better than just measuring pure survival. Now if all prices rose, that would be inflation, and GDP accounts for that. But if the price of one product rises while the prices of others fall, that’s just shifting consumer demand. Of course GDP isn’t perfect since there can be monopolies, oligopolies, and state-controlled companies, but imo it’s better than using population as a measure.