if i have a nuclear meltdown, all types of new services are required

Erm, that word "true" speaks of singular relevance- all other matters are "false."

but is this a net POSITIVE?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuEv942wOZs

True is another very strong word.

that is a very polar view; again there are different FORMS of value

services are a DIFFERENT form

Phrasing of "true" brings it into a polar view.

these CAN add value but aren't nessecarily showing a postive

GDP is honestly a terrible metric for wellbeing, and I don't care if you include or exclude services from that calculation. Living standards are what really matters, which means looking at the size and quality of homes that people are living in, how easily people can move around and how nice their transportation options are, and how healthy and in shape people are.

you are thinking 2-dimensional which is the typical way of viewing the word 'value'

And the previous explanation was indicative that service provided null value.

Living standards > productivity > GDP

that is the next component i was going to talk about arthur

You could double production, have it all go into hurting people then treating their injuries, and you'd end up with a world that's significantly worse than the one we have now.

another function of 'value' is the difference between the number of currency units and the amount of 'value' stored in each currency unit

the differnce between the value earned and the costs required to earn it is what determines buying power

Still irrelevant.

We should be looking at living standards, and metrics that associate with living standards. Longevity, physical fitness at each age, the quality of housing and how durable those homes are (IE, stick shacks that fall down in 20 years should count less than homes that are built to last for hundreds of years), illness rates, ease of movement, luxury goods and services and how available those are to the masses, etc.

living standard is a completly disconnected concept from any form of economic value

I disagree. If you want everyone to live in a nice, durable house, eat well, be healthy, move around easily, and have access to lots of luxury goods and services, then you need a strong economic foundation to make that happen.

it's a relative and subjective measure which varies from person to person

it isn't uniform

It's easy to be objective about it.

Physical fitness can be done from actual measurement. How long does it take you to run a mile? How far can you run in a minute?

if cost varies from place to place, so does the standard

https://twitter.com/jaxalemany/status/1176883231767060480

run a mile... uphill? down hill? in Denver or Salt Flats?

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.