| ▲ | palata a day ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
> How are you defining an economy? I said it above. The economy is what we produce and consume. Because the metrics economists use (like GDP) make no sense does not mean that the economy does not exist. There are physical metrics to measure how the economy is doing (that I mentioned above). For instance, you can look at how many tons of stuff are being moved by trucks. If many trucks move a lot of stuff, then it means that stuff is being produced and consumed. Another one you can measure is the surface that is being constructed. When humans in a country build houses and buildings, it is a sign that "the economy" is growing. And it is difficult to cheat with those "physical" metrics. Whereas cheating GDP is absolutely trivial. Do you know how they correct for inflation? There is no way to "measure" inflation, it's a guesstimate. But depending on how you guesstimate it, you increase or decrease the GDP. What we see in Europe since 2007 (the peak of fossil fuels for Europe) is that trucks are moving less and less stuff, and the surface built by humans in Europe is slowing down. Those physical estimators show that Europe is slowing down, completely correlated to fossil fuels. GDP is growing, sure... but again GDP is "manipulated" (consciously or not, that's not the point) by the numbers we put in the "inflation" box. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
> For instance, you can look at how many tons of stuff are being moved by trucks Gross tonnage is a good input into "what we produce and consume." It's incomplete, however. Grossly. It excludes all services, for example. It's why we abandoned it as a measure after like the early industrial revolution. (A better one is electricity production, which you can estimate remotely from fuel levels and thermals. It’s also woefully incomplete—the nutters trying to forecast based solely on it are influencers, not fund managers or policymakers, for good reason.) > Do you know how they correct for inflation? Yes. > There is no way to "measure" inflation This is nonsense. It must be estimated. But so must e.g. "the surface that is being constructed" depending on how one defines surface construction. There are various measures of inflation of various utility. Some are used to deflate GDP. Mankiw's Principles of Economics might be a good start if you're serious about your questions. Because by your metrics, decarbonistion is a folly—the measures are probably made up anyway! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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