Hrm, although I do find the metric of GDP pretty damn useless and misleading - living standards (a better word *might* be Quality of Life) is almost impossible to pin down.

@ManAnimal - Living standards would be independent of cost.

What you'd end up with is California being dinged HARD on living standards because square footage is so much more expensive there, which leaves less money for everything else.

Do I care if I can run a mile in x time at the moment? Is a valid counter point.

New York City would also be dinged hard on a living standards measurement, because $3,000 can't even get you a broom closet in Manhattan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ruyfbT6dEM&feature=youtu.be

but the standard doesn't have the same dimensions in ca vs say montana

QoL is subjective to the nines.

they type of people and type of work are WAY different between the two places

@Laucivol - We can make a point of "are people able to move around and live a normal life without constantly running out of breath or becoming exhausted."

thus what one considers 'comfortable' willl also vary

Do I even *care* if I'm living in the broom closet in NYC?

^

Quality of Life can only be expressed in terms of revenue to expenses

Personally, I'm fine with my one bed plus bath and a shared common area. Why? I'm barely home. This is not true for everyone.

@Laucivol We might not have a 100% accurate determination of what that is, but I think we can say without a doubt that, for most people in the West, their suffering is largely not money related. For the people that are in trouble, it's not because there isn't enough to go around, but because they're not capable, or a criminal, or have made bad choices, or even worse something bad happened.

and both revenue and expenses would vary based on the place they live

Perspective is honestly irrelevant. You just need an objective determination, and economic calculations are far too subject to high prices.

and i DO think it is money related

i think that people instead have been sold the lie that metrics such as GDP and market performance are accurate indicators of economic performance

they aren't

@Arthur Grayborn Food, clothing, housing, social quality, medical care, education. What other metrics might we evaluate?

Any we should remove?

Eh, money solves a number of problems, but it doesn't solve cultural concerns.

people might have more jobs, but their expense/revenue ratio is VERY low

and their savings is virtually non-existent

And, so far, most of the metrics I've seen are really tweaked to some definition to make it look like things are what the presenters want it to be.

Money is related, but money should not be in the calculation.

Square footage, structural durability, longevity, the percentage of the population that can walk four miles or climb three flights of stairs without losing their breath (at each age), access to and ability to afford entertainment (bowling alleys, movie theaters, tennis clubs, music venues, etc), disability rates, education levels, how many friends people have, depression and suicide rates, all could be factored in.

The Lefty "Sanders" types are right about at least one thing and that's wealth disparity.

further, the value of their assets have suffered dramatically in compared to their increasing expenses

Where you set the exact figure is subjective, but the measurement is objective.

disagree

You could use two flights of stairs instead of three.

you aren't measuring what you claim you are measuring if the metrics vary

@Arthur Grayborn Alright, that's pretty good.

How do the metrics vary?

You can use a standardized stair climb challenge and do random testing on the population of every state.

Life experience isn't as quantifiable as we've been led to believe far as I'm concerned. What is a good life?

the words 'objective' and 'subjective' denote a qualification of a 'perspective'

@Laucivol Wrong question, we're just considering the things that can be controlled for.

Not how someone socializes

you can't have 'objective measurment' only an 'apperhent objective measurement'

If you give up quantifiability, then you've conceded that living standards don't matter.

If you focus on economic valuations, then we might as well live in a city choked by pollution, paying $3,000 a month to live in a broom closet where we escape from the feces and heroin needle littered streets, and pay an extra $500 a month for security because we don't want to get jumped by someone looking to buy drugs.