What is the United States GDP?

@bythewell - I don't disagree with you, but it is a complex situation. A lot of people are worried about the rise of China, for example. They point out the growth of its GDP compared with the States and how many more people it has and how quickly it may become the dominant power in the world, if their per capita GDP gets up high enough.

The problem is that China has an extremely top heavy population, because of their one child policy. And that population is aging.

One prediction is that in the next few decades, their economy might collapse, simply because they will have too many workers concentrating on taking care of the elderly, rather than generating new products. If that happens, who knows what else might? There's almost no way for the average person to predict it.

This is the kind of thing that can get very depressing if you think about it too long. It's also one of the reasons I think people are crazy if they aren't making sure they have a vegetable garden and other means of survival that aren't dependent on the economics of the country they live in.

It's been a while since the World Wars when people had to bind together and suffered through food shortages and so forth and we forget that those supermarket shelves are entirely dependent on a system that is riddled with debt and, in some cases, corruption.

I don't think civilization will collapse. But I do think a vegetable patch will be worth its weight in gold sometime soon.

@GlassAxe- I do not know if I could agree with everything that you are saying, but the United States Economy is complex so no one will likely agree with everything someone else has to say. Top economists cannot even seem to agree on general economic strategies.

What I agree with you the most is that the GDP is a poor measure of growth. If you adhere to the Pareto Improvement or even the Kaldor-Hicks growth theories, then you would agree that the GDP does not accomplish "net benefit" accounting.

A natural disaster that creates environmental damage (BP, Exxon Valdez Spills) increases the GDP, creating "growth". When an obese person on Medicaid is treated for diabetes and hypertension, that is considered "growth". There are a number of things the GDP calls growth, that do not benefit society. Since we live on a planet that ultimately has finite resources, infinite growth will only come from increasingly socially detrimental economic activity.

@anon129293- I do not think that the only way out of our debt burden is through collapse. If you look closely at GDP, you will see that the addition of debt by our government is considered economic productivity. You could theoretically reduce the national debt by reducing the GDP.

Now, before you scream socialism or something along these lines, here me out. GDP accounts for all government spending, but it does not account for government debt. The government counts on future growth, which will only be harder by the way, to increase the tax base and pay down debt in the future. Essentially, the United States government takes a bullish stance on U.S. economic growth.

If we would phase out many of the subsidies and tax breaks for multinationals, which only benefit us by creating cheaper goods to consume, the government could reduce the money it borrows thus significantly reducing the debt. This would reduce GDP, but GDP is only an account of economic activity (and a skewed one at that), not true growth.

Unfortunately, it looks like the only way out of our debt burden will be through collapse, which would in turn lead to a worldwide financial collapse. The old rules still apply, live within your means. This will not be fun.