the.com/gross domestic product
A country's economic report card that can't tell happiness from hospital bills.
means The total market value of all finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a given period.
from Built from 'gross' (meaning total, before deductions — from Latin 'grossus,' thick or coarse) plus 'domestic' (within one's own country, from Latin 'domus,' house) and 'product' (something produced, from Latin 'producere,' to bring forth). The concept itself was formalized in the 1930s as economists sought a single number to measure a nation's output, becoming the dominant yardstick of economic health after World War II — even though its own architects warned it was never meant to measure well-being, only production.
- counts everything
- war, pollution cleanup, divorce lawyers all boost it
- misses unpaid work
- parenting and chores add zero to GDP
- invented purpose
- designed in 1937 to measure wartime output, not wellbeing
- growth obsession
- a shrinking GDP, not a stagnant one, triggers recession alarms