Friday, May 02, 2014

the wrong metrics

the government uses the wrong metrics to gauge the health of the economy.

for instance, new housing starts.

you can start all the new construction you want, but the only thing that shows the health of is the owners of construction firms. it does not take into account how many of the new construction starts will be occupied nor does it take into account renovation of existing buildings.

a better indicator of a healthy economy would be the percentage of residents who can afford decent or even basic housing.

similarly, how wall street is doing doesn't tell us much about how main street is doing.

wall street is doing fine.

so are food pantries.

1 comment:

Friko said...

Same here.
The economy is doing fine, we’re told. You can make statistics say anything you want them too.

What the worker on a low wage says, or the unemployed father of two, somehow gets drowned out in the clamour of the have-plenty, or worse, the have-more-than-needed.

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