GDP is a dated measure and can mislead analysis of a nation’s debt, carbon intensity/ environmental strain, wellbeing, vitality or vigour (energy) and the ability to combat rampant inequality to achieve sustainable and equitable economic growth (cooperation to protect and to grow the pie vs fighting over the scraps).
GDP is not a good metric of a healthy society, because GDP goes up when wars go up, GDP goes up when addictions rise. There is a direct correlation between the levels of sunlight in January in the Northern Hemisphere and sugar consumption. This has been a known-known for decades. The more depression and anxiety, the more ‘sugar’ related products are abused. I’m a chocolate and Coca Cola lover. I’m not a purist. The issue though is that we have a system that depends on co-dependency. With what we now know to be harmful substances. And a healthcare system that is strained, to put it mildly.
''One of the reasons we are susceptible to hypernormal stimuli ie marketing messages and sub-conscious behavioural stimuli, is because we live in environments that are 'hyponormal'. That is, environments that do not have enough of the type of stimuli that we normally need, which is usually human connection, creativity and meaning. And this is the only way to de-risk the supply side marketing and usage patterns that include media consumption '' - Tristan Harris, The Social Dilemma.
GDP includes air pollution, cigarette advertising, prison sentences, napalm, nuclear warheads, armored cars, high tech surveillance and riot police at peaceful legitimate protests.
GDP goes up when there’s a pandemic.
Ireland’s GDP is distorted by the presence of more than 1,500 multinationals, among them the world’s top tech and pharma firms. Ireland is also the global #1 hub for aviation leasing.
Foreign firms employed >1/10 th of the nation’s employees pre COVID-19 and, with pharma and tech exports booming amid the crisis, now providing pandemic-proof employment and record tax payments.
A small few multinationals are so big that, when they exploit Ireland’s low-tax environment with accounting moves, the nation’s GDP figures can be pushed to breaking point.
Eg, in 2015 Ireland posted a gravity-defying 26% gain in GDP, the highest ever recorded in post-war Europe. Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman dubbed it “leprechaun economics.”
Eventually it became clear that much of that gain reflected Apple’s decision that year to shift IP assets to an Irish domicile. The IMF calculated in 2018 that 25% of Irelands GDP growth could be attributed to global sales of iPhones, with other Apple units paying the Irish unit to use its IP.
The other way multinationals bloat GDP is by shifting their global HQs to the country, as scores did in the past decade, particularly U.S. pharmaceutical firms before that loophole was closed in 2016. These firms’ undistributed global profits inflate Irish GDP and GNI.
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