Source: THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY Date: October 1995,
Title: “If the GDP Is Up, Why Is America Down?,”
Authors: Clifford Cobb, Ted Halstead, and Jonathan Rowe
SSU Censored Researchers: Jeffrey Fillmore, Amber Knight
지디피 올랐다는 데 사는 꼬라지는 왜 이래?
If measured by growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the economy is booming.
Productivity and employment are up, and inflation is under control.
Yet 70 percent of Americans feel gloomy about the future.
The root of this formidable disconnection, this Atlantic Monthly article suggests,
may be found at the base of the aforementioned GDP
지디피 계산 자체가 문제가 있는 건 아닌 가?
Indeed, the authors theorize, the whole basis for assessing the status of the
economy is absurd, outdated, and insufficient—and that ultimately,
we need to re-think our definition of prosperity itself.
The GDP, formerly the Gross National Product (GNP), is a measure of market activity.
지디피라는 게 옛 날 지엔피로 시장 활동을 계측한 건데..
This means nothing more than the exchange of money between businesses or persons,
with no distinction between costs and gain.
기업이나 사람 간에 돈이 오고 간것일 뿐 원가와 이익의 구분이 없었는 데
By the curious standard of the GDP, the happiest event is an earthquake or a hurricane.
지디피라는 이상한 기준으로 보면, 가장 행복한 이밴트가 지진이나 허리케인으로 나온다.
The most desirable habitat is a multi-billion dollar Superfund site.
가장 바람직한 거주지는 수 십억 달러 초 거대 기금 사이트고..
All of these are a plus according to the GDP, because money is changing hands.
모든 이런 것들이 상승으로 잡힌다, 지디피에 의하면, 왜냐면 돈 주인이 바뀌기 때문에...
The GDP “does not distinguish between costs and benefits, between productive and
destructive activities, or between sustainable and unsustainable ones.”
지디피는 원가와 이익을, 건설적이냐 파괴적이냐도, 지속 가능한 건지 않은 건지도 구분하지 않는다.
(빌딩을 폭파한 것도 지디피에 계상되어 지디피는 상승한다)
The more companies deplete natural resources, the more the GDP increases.
어떤 회사가 자연 자원을 다 써버렸다, 그러면 지디피는 더 상승한다.
“This violates basic accounting principles, in that it portrays the depletion of
capital as current income.”
이 건 기본 어카운팅 원칙을 위반하며, 자본을 다 써버려도, 현재의 수입으로 잡힌다.
In light of this seemingly illogical and outdated theory, an alternative system of
economic measurement has arisen, called the “genuine progress indicator” (GPI),
which rather than eliminating the GDP would transform it into a more accurate
reflection of the nation’s total economic status.
비 이론적이고 시대에 뒤 떨어진 이론을 비춰보고, 지피아이(진짜 발전 지수)로 불리는 다른
경제 계량 시스템이 등장한다.
Some of the new factors that would be included:
포함되는 새로운 요소는 :
o Crime. Money spent on deterring crime or repairing damages from the effects of
social decline, including hospital bills, are factored in.
범죄, 범죄를 방지하기 위한 돈이나, 사회적 후퇴로 인한 손상을 수리 하는 거나, 병원비
같이 돈 안되는 것은 포함한다.(경제 규모에서 뺀다는 뜻)
o Other defensive expenditures. They figure in the cost of repairs from accidents,
or what people will have to pay for water filters, or air purification systems,
or any kind of cost due to an environmental hazard.
방어적 비용도 뺀다. 사고 처리 수리 비용, 수돗물 값, 정수기, 공기 청정기들 비용도 뺀다.
o Resource depletion and degradation of the habitat.
As companies use up the nation’s minerals and resources, so will it be noted
that a loss in capital is occurring.
자원 고갈도 빼고, 주거지 퇴락도 뺀다. 회사들이 천연 자원을 쓰면, 자본 감소가 일어 난다고
기록한다.(지디피 같이 상승에 안 잡힌다)
Damage to health, and environmental consequences will count as a negative since
the money spent is not on growth, but restoration of what was damaged.
건강의 손상, 환경 손상 결과는 마이너스로 계산한다, 왜냐면, 돈이 성장에 쓰이는 게 아니고, 손상 복구에 쓰이기 때문. (공기 오염을 정화하기 위해 천문학적인 돈을 퍼 붓는 나라가 있습니다,
그 비용을 지디피에 합산합니다. 그러나, 지피아이는 그 사회 비용을 국가 경제력에서 뺍니다. 어느 것이 맞다고 보십니까?)
o Loss of leisure. If people have to work two jobs or longer hours just to stay even,
then they aren’t really staying even.
They are falling behind, losing time to spend with their families, to further their
education, etc.
휴식, 레저을 못 취하는 것, 두개 세개 업을 뛰면서 레저도 못 쉬는 것도 경제 규모에서 뺀다.
The GDP assumes that such time is worth nothing.
지디피는 그 런 시간은 가치 없다고 가상한다.
In the final analysis, if the nation’s indicators of economic progress are obsolete,
then they consign us to continually resorting to policies that cannot succeed
because they aren’t addressing the right problems.
최종 분석에 의하면, 국가의 경제 표시등이 고물로 못 쓰게 된 것이라면 문제를 제대로 표시를 못한다.
COMMENTS: Jonathan Rowe, Clifford Cobb, and Ted Halstead, co-authors of the article,
work with the group Redefining Progress.
Rowe, speaking on behalf of the group, says the subject of their piece did get some
coverage, “but the result was typical of the mainstream media.
We were raising basic questions about the way the media and policy establishments
measure economic progress and wellbeing—specifically the Gross Domestic Product
or GDP.
미디어에서 경제 발달 지표로, 잘 사는 증거로 인용하는 지디피 자체에 대한 의문을 제가 한다.
We showed that in a multitude of ways, what the GDP counts as up, Americans experience
as down, from family and community breakdown to crime, disease, and environmental
decay; and that this phony accounting has a corrosive effect on public policy.
원자재 사용하여 살 사람도 없는 빈 아파트 건물 많이 지어서 지디피 올리는 중국을 새로운 방식으로 계산하면,
지피아이는 마이너스로 나온다. G 2 가 아니라 G 120 쯤 되지 않을까?
A few major outlets covered the story, mainly because we had devised an alternative
to the GDP which provided a concrete number and therefore ‘news.’
카나다와 일부 유럽 소국들이 이 지표를 경제 강함을 나타내는 데 쓴다.
But they quickly reverted to their old ways.
The GDP continues to be a totem of economic reportage, cited with reverential awe.
Politicians promise to boost the GDP, and nobody thinks to ask what exactly this
boost is going to consist of and how it will affect us.
정치가들이 지디피를 올린다고 할 때, 아무도 그 것을 무어로 채울 것인지 물어 볼 생각도 못 하고 있다.
(막말로 길 만들어 파 헤치고 다시 길 만들고만 계속해도 지디피는 상승하니까)
“There is a large and increasing gap between ‘the economy’ that the media reports
on and the one people actually experience. We were trying to get reporters to ask
the simple and obvious question that would begin to bridge that gap-a question
reporters used to learn on the police beat.
미디어가 경제를 말하는 것 하고 사람이 경험 하는 것 하고는 큰 갭이 있다.
If the local police chief announced that ‘activity’ on the city streets was up 10 percent
over the previous year, reporters would demand to know what exactly he or she was
talking about: muggings or tree plantings, car thefts or acts of neighborliness and kindness,
whatever.
길거리 활동이 늘어 난게, 길거리 폭력이냐, 나무를 더 심은 거나, 차 도둑질이냐, 이웃의 상냥함이
늘어 난거냐, 리포터는 물을 줄 알아야한다.(다 지디피로 계산하면 지디피 상승에 들어 가니까)
Unless you know what the 10 percent increase consists of, the gross statistic says nothing at all.
“The GDP is much the same. It is simply a gross statistical summation of monetary
transactions in the economy.
범죄에 경관 동원 하는 비용도 지디피에는 들어 가니까...
It says absolutely nothing about whether life is getting better or worse.
지디피는 확실히 삶이 좋아 지는지 나빠 지는 지 하고는 상관이 없다.
“That the media refuses to see this comes in part from changes in the sociology
of the newsroom.
Reporters used to work their way up from the police beat; they had a degree of skepticism
regarding official statistics and academic experts.
Today, by contrast, economic reporters increasingly come not with local reporting
experience, but with academic credentials and degrees. Management seeks such
people out.
Yet they often are so immersed in the language and conceptual apparatus of conventional
economic thinking-they so identify with the experts that they continually quote-that they
become incapable of asking the simple and obvious questions that most need to be asked.
“If reporters asked these questions—i.e., exactly what is growing, who is benefiting and
who isn’t, and what is the effect of that growth upon ourselves, our kids, and grandkids
it would open up whole new arenas of economic debate that currently are stifled
because of the implicit media blackout on any skeptical thinking regarding the GDP
and the assumptions on which it is based.
“Beyond that, of course, major business and financial interests (the latter in particular)
might be inconvenienced by greater skepticism regarding the GDP Such skepticism
would lead to greater scrutiny of what actually is expanding in the economy; t
he awe that surrounds the GDP casts a halo upon everything that goes into it-gambling,
cigarette sales, the depletion of natural resources, whatever.
A few business leaders have come to realize that false national accounting will
ultimately lead their companies and the entire economy into a big dead end,
but such people are still a minority.”
첫댓글 참이옵니다..