Comments on: Frequent Bridge Collapses Help Boost China’s GDP

By: John W

John W — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:25:15 +0000

Best way to improve GDP would be to start a world war!
Who cares about the standard of living except unenlightened running-dogs like Bastiat!? – smash a window today and ‘stimulate the economy’- you know it makes sense!

By: Michael Jennings

Michael Jennings — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 07:50:17 +0000

Might I suggest that the key problem here is not so much with the GDP, but that with the fact that China’s bridges collapse (and indeed their trains crash, and let’s not even think about their dams).

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 22:45:17 +0000

True Alisa – but the “long run” did not use to be a couple of years.

There are Roman bridges that are still standing – after a couple of thousand years.

Although, to be fair, the whole of the economy if the West is about to fall apart – over the next couple of years.

The “long run” has arrived – Lord Keynes is indeed dead (has been since 1946), pity about the rest of us.

By: Mose Jefferson

Mose Jefferson — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:22:13 +0000

The perpetual government construction project signs around my city all have the rather optimistic phrase “putting Oregon back to work”.

Funny, but it somehow never seems to work.

By: Russ in Texas

Russ in Texas — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:12:37 +0000

@Porlockianguy: let’s make it into a meme game. I think we could popularize “Bastiat” as a response, sort of like some people will now call “Godwin.”

By: phwest

phwest — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:54:30 +0000

Just as the map is not the territory, metrics are only a view of the underlying reality, not that reality itself. The goal of economic growth is to increase the overall standard of living. GDP is a decent measure of this, as long as the goal of policy is to improve the standard of living. When you forget that, and focus only on the metric, is when you end up doing stupid things like building empty cities and consuming wealth to generate cash flow.

Ditto with employment – a society in which everyone can meet their needs working 10 hours a week is better off that one where everyone must work 40, regardless of what that does to measures like hours worked.

By: Alisa

Alisa — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:38:09 +0000

In the long run all bridges break down.

By: Tedd

Tedd — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:15:43 +0000

I guess from now on we can call it the “parable of the broken bridge.”

By: 'Nuke' Gray

'Nuke' Gray — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:48:31 +0000

So communists were not just being incompetent when they made shoddy goods under Mao- they were practicing an early form of planned obsolescence!

By: PersonFromPorlock

PersonFromPorlock — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:19:17 +0000

All together now: “M. Bastiat, please call the office.”

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:56:40 +0000

Yes – astonishing though it seems, they (the Chinese leadership) seem to understand what David Cameron (and other Western leaders) do not understand.

“GDP” is nonsense.