4. One of the main issues with GDP is that it reflects economic activity rather than economic progress. Thus, Japan's efforts at rebuilding after the tsunami will appear as a boom in construction, when in fact the country has recorded a significant economic setback and the temporary boost in construction activity is simply going to get the country back to its previous level. The first thing that should be added to a new measure of GDP (or economic health) is an adjustment for negative economic activity. This can be a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other activity that detracts from a nation's economic growth but is not currently included in the GDP calculation.
The second issue is that the GDP per capita does not accurately reflect the wealth of a nation. Liechtensteiners do not live materially better than their Austrian and Swiss neighbors, but their per capita GDP says they do. Brunei has a very high per capita GDP, but almost all of that wealth goes to the Sultan -- the average Bruneian has the same standard of living as his Malaysian...
With a declining economic output, we can not financially export our way out of a government budget deficit situation. Since the oil crunch of the mid-1970s, energy costs have increasingly been a part of this equation. Trade deficits are linked to budget deficits in this way. This is best presented in a May 12, 2010 article, Donna Kardos Yesalovich documented that U.S. stock futures pared earlier gains after data
Federal Budget surplus by focusing on the three consecutive years of surplus budgets achieved by the Clinton Administration after nearly fifty years during the last three years towards the end of the second term of President Clinton and his administration from 1998 to 2000. President made public the new White House budget figures that expect a surplus of $39 billion for the fiscal year 1998 and a $150 billion surplus
He states that changes international capital flows have been the primary consequence of increased deficits and likens this to direct competition between the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. exporting industry. He reasons that the flow of foreign funds into the Treasury prevents these funds from being available for foreign purchase of U.S. goods and services. Thus, the more our government borrows and finances with foreign funds, the more our
Reduce the Budget Deficit Statutory budget controls in effect from 1985 to 2002 were designed "to reduce the budget deficit" (Lynch, 2011, p. 1). The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (1985) and the Budget Enforcement Act (1990) were primary drivers of deficit reduction mechanisms, which provided controls to cap Congressional spending and support to the legislative process with regard to reducing the deficit. The first of these Acts actually
Greek Debt The European Commission on Wednesday adopted a series of recommendations to ensure that the budget deficit of Greece is brought below 3% of GDP by 2012, that the government timely implements a reform programme to restore the competitiveness of its economy and generally runs policies that take account of its long-term interest and the general interest of the euro area and of the European Union as a whole (Europa,
Deficit and Economy Today, economists generally agree that high budget deficits reduce the ability of the economy to grow in the future. So, the general question is, why do high budget deficits matter? In order to understand this, we need to understand the concepts of economic growth and decline. What is economic growth: "Economic growth occurs primarily with the increase in value of goods and services produced by an economy" (Case
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