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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

> We measure resources by using per capita gross domestic product – the amount of money in a country evenly divided among its entire population.

GDP is not "the amount of money in a country".

GDP is the monetary value of goods and services produced within a country during a given period (a flow, measured in dollars-per-year).

The amount of money in a country is a measure at a point in a time (a stock, measured in dollars).

I realize Fortune magazine isn't The Economist, but I'd still expect PhDs in political science opining on economic topics to at least understand the difference between stocks and flows.

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it's not that either. it's the total value of all transactions.

if you paint a masterpiece worth millions and keep it in your closet it has negligible impact on GDP. only once it is sold does it have an effect.

And on the contrary, there’s this method of increasing GDP.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395566

And if its sold 5 times in the year its 5x the GDP. Of course the value of the painting hasn't changed and their remains only 1.

Resales of previously sold (used) goods are not included in GDP.

Services to facilitate selling [auction fees, commissions, shipping, etc.] are new services and so get counted, but the underlying asset's resale is not.

Can you explain more? Isn't it just money changing hands? The millions sat in the buyer's safe, now it's in the artist's safe. Same total, no? Or is it doubled? The artist has millions, and the buyer has millions worth of art. I am dense, if you can't tell.

That text is linked to a graph where the X axis is years.

“The first is an apple and the second is an orange.”

“The first is linked to something showing the author knows it’s an apple.”

“Agreed.”

Gawd only knows who this guy thinks he's quoting in the nonsensical response.

Also a great number of those services are valueless bullshit. It's much closer to the sum of all transactions.

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