Posted on 11/27/2009 11:14:38 AM PST by ricks_place
Al Gore, apparently not content with the job of cleaning the Climategate mess, is now opining on GDP accounting.
Surely a broader accounting of economic activity will enhance economic policy and decision-making. We commend the work of Professor Joseph Stiglitz and the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress for recognising that while facts and figures are important – indeed critical to thoughtful decision-making – we have placed too great an emphasis on outdated modes of distilling economic value. The longer we defer the proper accounting for externalities such as global warming pollution, the greater the strain we place on our already fragile economies.
This concept of green GDP has been around for a long time. Minnesota had some group write a report on how to restate the state’s economic growth with environmental factors. But it isn’t just environmental — if it was, you could have a reasonable discussion of a “net-of-resources domestic product” that would include some depletion charge for nonrenewables that would have a basis in real national accounting. But once you start this process you get a “genuine progress index” where “genuine” is determined by some elitists who decide whose income matters, which goods matter more, etc. Once one starts down the road you often don’t like the result. The Chinese government tried green GDP in 2004, but killed the idea a few years later when the “deductions” decided to count against measurable growth of goods and services gave an answer decidedly against the political judgment.
GDP is a score, not a judgment. And it should be that way, so that we don’t have to worry about whether we get the east German judge.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Stiglitz is a laughable gas-bag. A darling of the left-wing lunatic fringe, he seems to want to take the place of the left-wingers old idiot economist, Galbraith - who stopped making predictions when he realized that he was too consistent. Consistently wrong.
Stiglitz’s book on Globalization was a joke. In it, he blamed all of the world’s problems on the Reagan administration and deregulation... glossing over the fact that he was a part of the Clinton Cabinet and had ample opportunity to re-regulate.
He must have missed the part that there was 8 years of Clinton after Reagan and Bush I.
Just what we need are this intellectually dishonest pack of clowns juggling our GDP numbers for us.
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