US: Real GDP grows at an annual rate of 5.2% in Q3 vs. 5.0% expected | Hacker News Reader

US: Real GDP grows at an annual rate of 5.2% in Q3 vs. 5.0% expected

fxstreet.com

26 pointssafaa199313 comments

They say that once a metric becomes a target it’s no longer a useful metric, but I really do wonder how bad the world would be if life expectancy, depression rates, and literacy rates were headline stats rather than GDP.

Measured accurately, is life expectancy really something we should worry could be “gamed”? The easiest way to improve life expectancy is to prevent babies from dying, which sounds like a laudable goal.

GDP is not a good indicator of the economy.

GDP per capita / median salary should be the metric. Otherwise, they’ll keep saying the economy is doing great while the owner class takes all the profits for themselves.

GDP is a good indicator, it’s not the only.

It’s meant to measure the overall size of the economy and it does that pretty well, especially over time.

My point is that just growing the size of the economy doesn’t necessarily effect the average worker’s economic situation

So what? There is no reason why an average American worker should be concerned with the GDP.

They would care because it’s an overall indicator of economic health and might affect perception of interest rates, interest rates will affect their credit card bill, and any new loans.

It’s lot like they should watch it on a day to day level, but it’s part of basic financial literacy that every American worker should have.

Interest rates are based solely on the rate set by the Fed. Find me an interest rate not pegged to the Fed rate in some way, as opposed to GDP.

One of the major influencers on the Fed setting rate is GDP.

I don’t think GDP is a direct factor to specific things in people’s lives. It’s a macro indicator. It’s still useful to know and relevant to our lives.

Or maybe another way to say it is that there are many things directly relevant to our lives and they are all part of GDP.

How much of that growth went to the top 1% vs the bottom 50%? FRED has a chart of this divide, that basically shows that today the top 1% owns 32% of the nation's wealth, as much as the bottom 90%:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=G4YR

and the bottom 50% is on life support with 2.5%:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSB50215

Discussions like these always make me wonder what the distribution should be. How much should the top 0.1, 1, 10% own? How much the bottom 10,20,30%, etc.?

>Discussions like these always make me wonder what the distribution should be.

It depends which side you're on.

>How much should the top 0.1, 1, 10% own?

Less

>How much the bottom 10,20,30%, etc.?

I would say the distribution is a symptom. In a country where billionaires are blasting themselves into space we can afford to house the 600k homeless (including children). If the 0.001% can figure out how to accomplish that I don’t care what the overall distribution looks like.

While this is an important trend, GDP is not the same as wealth. You could have the same reported trends with a static, declining or GDP.

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