Constantly from the mouths of liars who want us to focus on the wrong things and the wrong definitions of those things. Africa is knowingly and unknowingly falling for the same okie dokes that Africans in the Diaspora have more experience dealing with in the war with our enemies.
GDP
Gross Domestic Product. Almost the entire population of every country that uses this measure, don't know what GDP is, not even what the acronym stands for. GDP is gross revenue for the country. It's not the country's revenue, but rather the total revenue generated by the exchange of goods and services within the country. GDP is used by our enemies so much that we should know that a focus on GDP is a way to misdirect focus.GDP is used to say the economy is growing, thus we are improving and life is improving and the country is getting healthier and the government deserves the credit.
Nothing could be further from the truth as to what GDP means. Since GDP, as a measure, is not revenue that belongs to the national government, to use GDP as a measure of the health or wealth of a nation, is false. GDP might give some indication of the value of goods and services that were exchanged. However, we can be certain GDP represents inconsistent valuations, thus cannot be compared from year to year. Adjusting for inflation is not enough to equalize valuations across time. Also GDP accounts for personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports. We can be certain there is double accounting. I buy a car, then you take that money and buy a house and so on. GDP is a messy indicator. Some websites say GDP can be calculated by adding up all of the money spent by consumers, businesses, and government in a given period. It may also be calculated by adding up all of the money received by all the participants in the economy. GDP does not account for environmental impact of economic activity. Thus increased economic activity could cause GDP to increase, but yet, water, air and land could be getting increasingly polluted. Furthermore, the gap between the haves and have nots could also be increasing, which is almost always the case. GDP does not account for the health of citizens. Economic activity could be increasing, people could have more money, but they could be working themselves to death and generally dissatisfied and deficient in quality family time. Thus an increase in GDP is not necessarily a good thing. An increase in GDP, used in this fashion, and as a sole measure of how good a job leadership is doing, usually means GDP is a bad thing. GDP does not account for job losses due to increased economic activity, thus GDP accounts for additions in valuation, but not subtractions in the number of participants. For profit businesses exact a toll on the public and on the health of workers and the environment. There are more limitations and shortcomings of GDP as a sole measure to focus on to determine how things are going. But since this is what our leaders keep pointing to, then we know they are either deceitful, ignorant or both.
