Loading ...Until Trump the emphasis was on pretending that the economy was great. Now it is to make it out it is as bad as possible so the new Fed chairman can cut rates and create the illusion of an economy on a huge rebound into the mid-terms. As a result, none of the numbers mean anything. Look at the deception perpetrated by Middelkoop and Arouet that ipso posted: the implication is that only 33% of the workforce is in the private sector, supporting the bloated bureaucracy, whereas the 33% is a third of the whole population, supporting kids, education, welfare, health, retirees, defence etc. etc.. Probably a pretty good historical norm! When we were a family I (20%) funded a wife (home duties, 20%) and three kids (60%) as well as my contributions to the government to support other peoples’ wives, kids, health, pensions etc. Now that I am retired I guess we are both retired, or home duties, or unpaid child-minders or whatever, but we are self funded retirees, so not a drain on the 33% of the people who are salaried employees or self employed.
And GDP, as meaningless a number as was ever invented, but it has become such a foundation of modern economics that questioning its use is akin to questioning vaccines.