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Comment by HPsquared | Hacker News Reader

Also: anything relating to home cooking, exercise, self-care, relationships and caring for children and other relatives. Only "paid professional" services are counted which are often much worse quality than the organic untaxed real thing.

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It depends on estimates. I have seen estimates which included all that and also things like illegal prostitution in services category.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/business/worldbusiness/27... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/30/nicholaswatt.m...

> The revised GDP will include some money from illegal activities, such as money from cigarette and drinks smuggling, prostitution and money laundering.

(Greeks were highly motivate to have higher value by any means necessary as discussed in article, this is a quite extreme case)

That's still 'trade' though. As in, money changing hands.

ok but "untaxed non-monetary things part of a wholesome life" and "black market money exchange" are very different topics

It's funny, because not only would I value her jam, I would also value it much higher than anything I could get from the store.

Interesting. So you would say, if someone has a talent for cooking, specializes himself, becomes a professional, paid by people who enjoy the food, you would be at least sceptical, when it comes to quality?

I see paint jobs by people done by themselves. And compare it with paid professional servers. The pendulum always swings to professional. :)

I can say that I would rather visit my friends and have a homecooked meal over a restaurant visit any day of the week. There is an intangible value to the combination of food and personal relationships.

"So you would say, if someone has a talent for cooking, specializes himself, becomes a professional," - do you typically know all that about the people who staff the restaurants you visit? And do you think it is the case?

If that person makes a home-cooked meal for their family, no doubt adding value to the world, the value added is not counted towards GDP. Only the "money (or something else taxable) changing hands" transactions are counted.

Most people who make homecooked meals will buy food from a store so it will show up, just indirectly.

Only the inputs, not the value add.

For babysitting it's obviously better for the children to be with their family instead of "cared for" by the first stranger that accepts the lowest wage.

There are definitely undermining effects in commercialized services. Cooking is one of most approachable skills to try and notice first hand.

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