From a reader:
Mr. Goldberg,
First, let me state that I think the existence of The Corner reduces our real GDP figures somewhat. Here’s a short, oversimplified explanation:
Assuming the following:
– 10,000 people monitor The Corner regularly at work.
– “Monitoring regularly” means hitting the refresh button every 15 minutes.
– Stopping work to refresh the page and glance at new posts takes 1 minute.
– Starting back into the project you were working on takes 1 minute.
– Average productivity $ value per minute of the 10,000 viewers = $5.
(Yes, I pulled that out of thin air, but you can do that in economics.)
That would figure out to be 8 minutes per person of lost productivity every hour, or $400,000 of lost productivity each hour. Assuming a 40-hour work week, that’s $1,600,000 lost per week, or $83,200,000 per year. That brings our GDP figure down just a bit.
Now whether comparing GDP figures between China and the US is good or bad, I’d say it’s probably more irrelevant. The West has turned into one big shopping mall, and sees everything through economic glasses. China and our other enemies do not. They have not forgotten that it is power, and power alone, that rules history. We believe that our economy is what gives us power. That is a pretty fragile belief, don’t you think?
Anyway, I don’t care what my nieces and nephews say….math is fun!