This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 24th, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown.

GDP doesn't measure many good things, just as it does measure many bad things.

That idea has been around for 40 years. just as it does measure many bad things.

That idea has been around for 40 years.

And now some people want to fix it or even replace

the venerable measure of wealth creation.

But why?

After all, GDP is a measure without judgment.

And that's a very good thing, according to Cato Institute Research Fellow Will Wilkinson.

This is Robert Kennedy from 40 years ago. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones average nor

national achievement by the gross national product. For the gross national product includes

air pollution ambulances to clear our highways from carnage.

Elsewhere, he says, it measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile,

and it can tell us everything about America except whether we are proud to be Americans and a lot of that

Criticism is found today of the gross domestic product as a as a measure. Yeah that's right so GDP is they used to call

it GNP they call it GDP these days which is a just a comprehensive measure of the total output of a country's economy.

There are lots of objections to GDP as a measure some of which

Bobby Kennedy mentioned in that famous speech that you know

government spending is a part of GDP.

So a clean up after a environmental catastrophe,

you know, will positively affect GDP in the year that the spending occurs.

So there are all sorts of good theoretical problems with the measure.

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