According to this article by Christopher S. Rugaber, “The economy grew at a much slower pace this spring than previously estimated. He attributes this to a surge in imports that has not been matched for the past 26 years
In his second paragraph in this article, Mr. Rugaber goes on to say that, “The nation’s gross domestic product – the broadest measure of the economy’s output” grew at a 1.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010.
Here’s the problem I have with this article and many others that I read that talks about GDP and economic growth – they never get to the heart of the problem. That is, they never connect economic growth to the fact that unemployment is extremely high. When people aren’t working they aren’t making money, which means they can’t buy products and services. If you really want to see economic growth, you have to put the population to work. The ability to output more stuff – goods and services as measured by GDP – doesn’t measure the productivity of the nation. This is because new technology has replace people who used to do jobs. New technology has built efficiencies in the production process, but this didn’t result in more people working. It resulted in more people not working. It’s a vicious cycle that is driven by profit motive that only makes sense when people are working, because then, and only then, do they have the money to spend on commodities, or outputs.
I explain this in much more detail in Inert America now available at Amazon.com.
The Associated Press: Economic growth slows to 1.6 pct. in the spring
