Who started the psyop that 'line go up' is the only thing that matters for a nation?

[ThatZenoGuy]

Every damned economist bitches about some imaginary number going up or down, without giving a shit about what matters to the average person.
If a nation has 1000 bricks production a year, but 1000 people, it's realistically 'poorer' than the nation with only 100 bricks but 20 people.

 

[Morphic Tide]

The thing is that far, far more policy revolves around the institutional and international figures, because on the personal level you get the noise of the utter fuckwits able to piss away billionaire inheritance making it thoroughly impossible to set stable expectations. To say nothing of the reporting biases.

And these Big Figures inevitably must trickle out to other sectors of the economy, which in turn generally need workers, which dictates some of it get to the little guy. This is furthered by taxes being proportionate so the Big Figures getting bigger means more for Daddy State to squeeze to hand to the little guy.

But that's just what's visible because the people in charge find it aligns with their interests, the economists actually do talk about per-capita figures all the time. They're the richest support base of Libertarians for a reason, because unlike most other flavors of rich people it's their job to think about how things actually fit together instead of being able to ignore the fools being parted from their money.

 

[Largo]

Every damned economist bitches about some imaginary number going up or down, without giving a shit about what matters to the average person.
If a nation has 1000 bricks production a year, but 1000 people, it's realistically 'poorer' than the nation with only 100 bricks but 20 people.

Do you think that economists don't track per capita?

I would observe that this is hardly a new criticism of economics. I remember reading an essay several years ago about 19th century proto-fascists in Italy, and how they helped lay the seeds for it to develop in the 20th century. And while I don't remember the name, I remember one of them grumbling how Italy and economists acted like their nation was just an "accumulator of corn" instead of something with a glorious, rich history.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Do you think that economists don't track per capita?

That's weighted because if there's 1000 bricks, and 100 people, but 99 of those people only have 1 brick, the 'per capita' is still 10 bricks per person, ten times higher than reality.

 

[Morphic Tide]

That's weighted because if there's 1000 bricks, and 100 people, but 99 of those people only have 1 brick, the 'per capita' is still 10 bricks per person, ten times higher than reality.

...We have a lot of different inequality figures for that. You probably cannot wrap your head around how ridiculously many ways economists sift the data to describe spreads based on all manner of factors. It is, in fact, one of the biggest sore-spots the more-activist policies obsess over, usually counterproductively. It's the subject of the most basic efforts at rectifying statistical disruptions like Ireland's tax status.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

...We have a lot of different inequality figures for that. You probably cannot wrap your head around how ridiculously many ways economists sift the data to describe spreads based on all manner of factors. It is, in fact, one of the biggest sore-spots the more-activist policies obsess over, usually counterproductively. It's the subject of the most basic efforts at rectifying statistical disruptions like Ireland's tax status.

Unquestionably people are getting poorer and poorer however, but if you were to watch economists they praise that 'line has gone up'. Bidenomics is apparently 'working wonders' instead of, ya know, plummeting the standard of living.

In a sane world everyone would be setting themselves on fire and tearing their hair out in abject terror of what is going on, but that isn't happening. ;V

 

[Morphic Tide]

Unquestionably people are getting poorer and poorer however, but if you were to watch economists they praise that 'line has gone up'. Bidenomics is apparently 'working wonders' instead of, ya know, plummeting the standard of living.

I refer back to my initial response:

But that's just what's visible because the people in charge find it aligns with their interests, the economists actually do talk about per-capita figures all the time. They're the richest support base of Libertarians for a reason, because unlike most other flavors of rich people it's their job to think about how things actually fit together instead of being able to ignore the fools being parted from their money

Mainstream media talking heads are not representative of "economists".

 

[LordsFire]

Every damned economist bitches about some imaginary number going up or down, without giving a shit about what matters to the average person.
If a nation has 1000 bricks production a year, but 1000 people, it's realistically 'poorer' than the nation with only 100 bricks but 20 people.

The problem isn't economists or economic data, it's managerial bureaucrats/elitists who think that data makes them gods who can control society through trying to manipulate such things.

To be fair, some economists fall into the category, but the root problem is not people of that specific profession, it's people with a god complex in general.

 

[Marduk]

The problem isn't economists or economic data, it's managerial bureaucrats/elitists who think that data makes them gods who can control society through trying to manipulate such things.

To be fair, some economists fall into the category, but the root problem is not people of that specific profession, it's people with a god complex in general.

Every damned economist bitches about some imaginary number going up or down, without giving a shit about what matters to the average person.
If a nation has 1000 bricks production a year, but 1000 people, it's realistically 'poorer' than the nation with only 100 bricks but 20 people.

The real problem here is that managerial elites have a perverse incentive to want the organization they are managing to grow in size. The bigger organization, the more need for managers, the more need for managers, the more management jobs open up, the more management jobs, the more jobs for managers of managers, and that means promotions for the manager and for his buddies for they were already there and so have experience and seniority.

The other motivation is cheeky financial policy. National debt is for one, and the lower it appears, the more money they can borrow to spend on own pet stuff.
Say, you have a country of 1m people with 100k gdp per capita. Like many western countries it has 100% debt to GDP ratio, aka it has 100bn debt, or 100k debt per capita.
Let's say in our example country treasonous bureaucrats win elections and institute open borders policy. They let in 100k of third world refugees who will average make barely 20k per capita, to "grow the economy" despite lowering the country's per capita GDP.
Now the GDP per capita is 91k, but a miracle has happened in some of the important financial benchmarks...
GDP has increased by 2% to 102bn, so yay, the useless bureaucrats have hidden the fact that they couldn't make the economy grow naturally, many finance people are happy that line went up, while debt to GDP ratio fell to 98% (so they can borrow about 2bn while staying at 100%, don't ask where that 2bn will go), and debt per capita fell to whooping 91k.
It's crazy, but for those who only look at the math it adds up. And in some scenarios law and regulations even forbid people from considering anything other than specific statistical indicator values.
Please ignore the fact that no one wants to live in the homeland of the people who came where they made 10k per capita but have a huge economy because there's 100m of them, by common sense, and from the position of average citizen GDP per capita is much more relevant than size of economy, but for people at the very top can be quite different as i've shown here.