Ok so the point is that if we measured for, let's say for a lack of a better term, "well-being", and came up with an equivalent of GNP for well-being, the we could strive to maximize our well-being index without reference to dollars changing hands or BTUs of natural gas burned?The minute we start measuring shit differently we start doing shit differently.
Wait a second...something like...Gross National Happiness???
We can be much more accounterly about it. Up until 1991, the Bureau of Economic Analysis measured "GNP" - Gross National Product. Then, as part of the wind-up to NAFTA, the BEA switched to "GDP" - Gross Domestic Product. What's the difference? The difference is offshoring. If you charge taxes on GNP, then money made by US "residents" (which includes US corporations) in foreign countries is taxed. If you charge taxes on GDP, then money made within US geographic borders is taxed. "GNP" and "GDP" are both measures of production. GNP to capita and GDP to capita are both measures of productivity. The former says American corporations pay American taxes therefore build in America, you save freight. The latter says American corporations only pay American taxes on shit you build in America therefore build anywhere else, your shareholders will thank you. How 'bout EBITDA? it blew my fucking gourd the first time I heard that phrase. My boss used it in three meetings before I asked his boss what the fuck "eebidaw" was. "Eebidaw," as it turns out, is why we were selling $10k systems to Jack in the Box for $1500... because each Jack in the Box was a $25/mo service charge and that service charge we got to mark as profit while the $10k system went into the "amortization" category which meant it wasn't a part of "eebidaw" which meant we left it off the quarterly reports. Guy who explained "eebidaw" to me? Later asked me to cut the price of a 4-speaker system down to the bone, not because we were trying to be profitable, but because there was a number he was trying to get under to write the whole thing off entirely so we could put four-speaker systems in every goddamn Bank of America in the United States. That company is gone, of course, and good riddance. They lost $20m in contracts within six months of laying me off. The arrogant prick in me wants to take some credit for that but at the same time? They were playing the game based on metrics that were utterly unsustainable. Enron-bad. MF'n ridiculous with only a modicum of analysis. Which is probably why they never found a buyer until Apple picked over their bones, spat them out and then the vomit was regurgitated three times over. No one has done that to shareholder capitalism yet, but they could. One rules change and it's a brave new world. Imagine what a class-action lawsuit against Exxon-Mobil from, say, The EU would look like, just for the melting runways at Heathrow et. al.Although both GDP and GNP conceptually represent the total market value of all goods and services produced over a defined period, there are differences between how each defines the scope of the economy. GDP measures the goods and services produced within the country's geographical borders, by both U.S. residents and residents of the rest of the world. GNP measures the goods and services produced by only U.S. residents, both domestically and abroad.