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> This is largely due to global trade being flat for the past 10 years

People are consuming more international goods and more domestic goods, so trade as a percentage of trade relative to GDP has stagnated, but not volume of trade. Since 2008, maritime trade has increased by 3 billion tons or 37% [1].

> Did you know that rent is part of GDP?

It's also a component of the inflation, so it cancels out. Housing is getting more expensive, but part of it is that we are consuming more of it than we used to. Home sizes have been growing, but household sizes have been falling [2].

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264117/tonnage-of-worldw...

[2] https://www.thezebra.com/resources/home/median-home-size-in-...

The first source isn't really accessible unless you have an account. Total exports in terms of adjusted cost _has_ stagnated: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-trade-exports-const....

I suspect sheer maritime freight tonnage may be a less reliable proxy due to factors like cost of shipping changes, role of air freight, tariff changes, etc. Maybe share all the trade and globalization graphs instead? https://ourworldindata.org/trade-and-globalization

Your second source, hilariously, predates the entire pandemic (which is when home prices really took off). It also says very little to support your point that we're "consuming more" housing because home sizes are growing. The Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index seems to suggest that home prices were rising only modestly until the pandemic. https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/indicators/sp-core...

> Total exports in terms of adjusted cost _has_ stagnated

This doesn't seem to match what you'd get by multiplying their figures of inflation-adjusted GDP [1] with their figures of exports as a percentage of GDP [2].

> Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA

Home prices aren't factored into in either GDP or inflation because they're considered an asset. You're right that the economy has stagnated since the pandemic, especially in America. My point is that it's absurd to suggest that the global economy hasn't grown in the past decade.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-gdp-over-the-last-t... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/merchandise-exports-gdp-c...

Your link says that in 2005 international trade as a percent of GDP was 23% and in 2014 it's 24%, so about the same.

Gross World Product was about $43t in 2005 and $78t in 2014, so that would suggest international trade has increased from $10t to $18t in 10 years, nearly doubling, inflation adjusted.

You can say that the non-international part of GDP is overestimated, lets say by 40% more in 2014 than in 2005. That would mean that real GWP in 2014 was just 56t, and therefore the 18t international trade would actually be 32% -- a 33% increase in 10 years.

> Don't believe GDP as an indicator of real growth, they keep on adding fictitious sources to these numbers. Did you know that rent is part of GDP? And even rent that homeowners would have paid to a landlord had they owned their home?

Of course renting is an economic activity that should be reflected in the GDP, and it is as "real" as anything else. To focus solely on international trade feels shortsighted as well. When a doctor sees you and charges you $200, that's going into the GDP but not into any trade balance.

The world is richer since 2008 by almost any metric you can think of, including inflation-adjusted per capita income which is independent of GDP.

So often I read so many utterly ridiculous economic opinions expressed here by people who should know better and be better educated.

How can a smart, presumably educated person not know that rent counts as economic activity?

To say the world is poorer than in 2008 is just utterly preposterous.

Per capita GPD in China went from 3500 to 12500. India 1000 to 2200.

There is half the world. US, Canada and Europe is only 15% of the population but I don't know how the case can be made we are poorer than in 2008 either.

> How can a smart, presumably educated person not know that rent counts as economic activity?

Of course it's "economic activity". But if I sublet to someone that sublets to someone that sublets to someone that lives in an apartment, that's a 4x increase in money flow but there's no production of goods or services at all.

It makes sense to have the cost of building and maintaining homes represented somewhere, but rent is a poor proxy for that.

GDP doesn't count all "economic activity." Otherwise, HFTs would cause GDP to explode. It doesn't account for the cost of construction either because that's an intermediate cost. Even home sales aren't counted because they're considered an investment. GDP only considers the value of the final consumed goods and services, and rent is a consumed service. If you're a homeowner, they estimate your rent and use that instead.

> GDP doesn't count all "economic activity."

Right, which is why the insult in the post I quoted is getting things very wrong.

> GDP only considers the value of the final consumed goods and services, and rent is a consumed service. If you're a homeowner, they estimate your rent and use that instead.

I understand that but it's a notably flawed way of going about it. Prices in general can have a loose coupling to value but with rent it's extra bad. A small change in housing stock can trigger a massive swing in rent and GDP even though the service being delivered doesn't change.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

For the 1000th time, regular rent (e.g. you pay $1000/mo for an apartment) is not the same as rent-seeking.

It's just correlated with ALL sorts of rent seeking:

https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...

So the country is better off if prices of non-tradable services are increased by their suppliers? That sounds like the broken window fallacy.

If I own a house (outright) and live in it, I pay nothing, and no impact on GDP

If my neighbour owns a house (outright) and lives in it, I pay nothing, and no impact on GDP

If I rent from my neighbour for $10k a year, and he rents from me for $10k a year, GDP increases by $20k a year, but nothing has really changed, expect the amount of money paid in taxes.

So that's why you have imputed rent as part of GDP. Fine, I get that.

How about this scenario

I have a kid and look after it, I pay nothing, and no impact on GDP

My neighbour has a kid and looks after it, he pays nothing, and no impact on GDP

I look after my neighbours kid 3 days a week and he looks after mine, in an exchange, no impact on GDP

I look after my neighbours kid 3 days a week and he pays me $300, and he looks after mine 3 days a week and I pay him $300. GDP increases $600 a week, and more money is taken in taxes.

Do we include all unpaid work?

If I (a painter) pay my neighbor (a gardener) to garden my front yard and he pays me to paint his garage, then GDP increases.

If I do the gardening myself, and he does the painting himself, GDP doesn't increase.

How about me looking after my old parent vs me working overtime and paying a care home to do it?

Two economists were walking down the street. One saw a dog s*t on the ground, and told the other: “If you eat that, I’ll give you thousand dollars.” Other guy looked at it, thought “It’s bad, but I’ll get $1000”, and ate it. His friend paid him, although he still regretted it because it was really bad. After some time, they encountered another dog s*t. This time the guy who ate it before offered $1000 for eating it to his friend. He accepted, thinking “I’ll gain the $1000 I lost”. He ate it and got paid. After some time, they stopped for a while, and one said to other, “I feel like we just ate dog s*t for nothing”, the other replied “Oh, come on! We just contributed to the GDP by $2000, it was not for nothing!”

Makes sense. GDP captures money spent on services, not philosophical judgment on if that money was wisely spent or produced net happiness.

In a more realistic examples, alcoholics purchasing booze, obese people overeating, and people wasting their lives watching TV all contribute to GDP.

The GDP is a measure of economic activity, meaning the exchange of money for products or services. Of course there are activities, such as the ones you describe, that will not be accounted because they are done for free or in exchange for something else.

> How about me looking after my old parent vs me working overtime and paying a care home to do it?

Yes of course the latter will have an impact on the GDP, and the former not. You are producing more work for money and you are buying more work for money.

The point is that the country is no wealthier in either scenario, yet people use GDP as a proxy for the productive output and wealth of a country.

But the country is wealthier in the scenario where you produced and sourced more labor for money. Arguably more productive too, because you expanded the pool of labor when you worked more hours, which your employer (presumably) transformed into more money.

Can you explain how?

If someone is paid to dig holes and fill them up right after, the country is not any wealthier even though GDP is increased, in fact slightly less wealthy because of wear and tear on the shovel/excavator.

GPD is an estimate that relies on most people being rational.

A company that pays contractors to do nothing but dig up holes and fill them back up again will quickly go bankrupt, so most people aren't going to engage in such enterprise.

Just because you found a way to hack the GDP in an online argument doesn't immediately throw its usefulness in the real-world.

Repeatedly digging up the same place is a relatively common real world scenario, such as when multiple utilities need to be installed or repaired on the same stretch of ground.

e.g. repairing a water main, then laying some underground electrical cables, then laying some fiber optic wire.

Due to inefficient coordination, country A may have the same patch of ground dug up and filled three times.

Whereas country B, more efficient, only has to dig once, do all the work, then fill it up once.

So country B records lower GDP but in fact ends up slightly wealthier.

I certainly agree that different countries will not only have different levels of efficiency, but also different accuracies in their GDP measurement.

Shadow economies also exist and comprise different % in different countries.

The example that started this is someone taking care of an elderly person themselves vs working overtime and paying someone to do so. Simply by working overtime for a company, this person created economic value, likely higher than of their own wage. Second, other economic agents received payment in exchange for services, so this also increased our productive output. In both sides of this operation, taxes were paid, and the country is therefore wealthier in both a fiscal and economic sense.

I think the confusion here is because it seems odd that taking care of your parents by yourself is not considered productive unless you exchange money for it. GDP is an imperfect measure, and by definition does not take into account such voluntary/unpaid activities.

I don't see how formalizing and adding money to an informal relationship increases wealth.

The caregiver is doing the same work either way. Where is the wealth increase coming from?

Before we continue our discussion, can you tell me what is your definition of wealth?

I go by the OED standard definition.

Assuming you mean OECD, and that for these purposes we consider money reserves as an asset, then the person doing overtime has no increase in wealth (assuming they paid the same to the caregiver), the caregiver has an increase, every company involved have an increase, and the government also has an increase in wealth. If the person doing overtime is more qualified than the caregiver, then productivity increased as well.

I meant OED as in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OECD definition seems suspect, an increase in money reserves does not guarantee an increase in wealth when there's been inflation. Do you have a source for it?

> Yes of course the latter will have an impact on the GDP, and the former not. You are producing more work for money and you are buying more work for money.

I neglected to mention I work in an old peoples home. The overtime is the exact amount of care my parent needs.

> If I own a house (outright) and live in it, I pay nothing, and no impact on GDP

This is not true, at least in the US. If you're a homeowner, they estimate how much it would cost to rent your own home and include that in the GDP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_rent

You snipped the following line

> So that's why you have imputed rent as part of GDP. Fine, I get that.

I then came up with other parts where economic activity is not imputed

> If I do the gardening myself, and he does the painting himself, GDP doesn't increase.

But capital increase. Next time this capital will hit market - when you decide to sell fruits or home with beautiful garden it will be taxed and will increase GDP.

GDP is statistics anyway, so any work that doesn't rot and hit the market will eventually show up in GDP.

> If I rent from my neighbour for $10k a year, and he rents from me for $10k a year, GDP increases by $20k a year, but nothing has really changed, expect the amount of money paid in taxes.

Not really because even if you are living in your own paid-off house, the rent will be added to the GDP.

> If I do the gardening myself, and he does the painting himself, GDP doesn't increase.

There is a law being worked out somewhere (probably Europe) that will tax any activity you are doing. If you paint your garage, this activity will be evaluated financially and you'll have to pay taxes on it. Not doing so is tax evasion.

* last one was /s but maybe not really?

> There is a law being worked out somewhere (probably Europe) that will tax any activity you are doing. If you paint your garage, this activity will be evaluated financially and you'll have to pay taxes on it. Not doing so is tax evasion.

New feudalism

Along with the surveillance to make it practicable.

The sentence "the country is better off" is subjective. The country's GDP will go up if all prices go up, yes. But this will also mean that inflation will go up, and in adjusted terms no one will be richer. The price deflator mentioned by the sibling is one of the ways to make that adjustment.

Equating a high GDP with "better off" is problematic.

It could be backed by products that nobody wants (wars and such) or it could be at the expense of other quality of life metrics such that the juice is not worth the squeeze.

It's like lifting weights to get huge instead of to get strong or healthy, you can end up some undesirable results.

The GDP, by virtue of having the basket of things under comparison already picked out, has this very convenient thing called the implicit price deflator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XndsyYUjMv8

Watch this. Counting rent is about as sensible as counting financial services.

No thanks - if you are interested in an argument, please present yours in written format.

your global trade link stops in 2014, but the world bank shows the trade decline trend continuing to the present [1]

you raise concerns about the interpretation of GDP and use trade as a more believable replacement - but how about using manufacturing as a more direct replacement? it seems to have continued it's rising trend through the present. [2] rising by 50% in the last 10 years.

this seems to show that growth has not been flat, but has been rising in line with long-term trends.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/manufacturin...

The data on the global Electricity Mix provides evidence there is an energy transition - https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

Expanding the view to the whole energy mix, the evidence is minuscule: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix

Looks right. The trend break in the OP's chart of emissions happens around 2009, right when the GFC started to have major effects.

Another fun effect of less overall emissions growth from burning fossil fuel, whether due to decline in global economic activity or emissions target regulations, is a specific reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions. (Atmospheric SO2 has a cooling effect and, sort of, mitigates CO2 driven warming. One terraforming idea is to just increase atmospheric SO2, which obviously has problems of its own; see Venus...)

Yeah, see aerosol cooling effect.

Also, GDP is inaccurate because the CPI is innacurate. compare the CPI with any realistic way of measuring inflation such as case shiller, the big mac index or the price of oil in barrels and you'll quickly see that the CPI is undercounting by a several percentage points per year. she shadowstat: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

Also, related, check out Nate Hagens work on the Great simplification (he's got a podcast and on youtube). I won't spoil it here but he and his team of scientists have made some very interesting discoveries on future GDP growth.

Really, ok what is the good part of plus 4.5 degrees? Is it all bad or has no one actually considered both sides.

Looking for good parts of 4.5 degrees of warming is like looking for a bright side in a horrible apartment fire. Sure, it might open up some more green space for a future park, but given all the terrible death and suffering that kind of misses the point.

Would it open a north sea passage, would it make most of Russia inhabitable...

I feel like that exactly matches the comparison I was making.

I fail to see any upside that would justify the displacement and suffering of hundreds of millions of people across the planet. Are you serious?

Still not telling the good side then?

We're talking global control here so displacement is not that far fetched.

Still not caring about the suffering of millions? Okay, I'm done here.