Column 8 · The Rub
The economy grew. Did anyone you know?
Gross domestic product is the country's favourite scoreboard, and like most scoreboards it is only as honest as the thing it is measuring. If the number is up, the treasurer smiles. If it is down, someone has to go on radio and say "technical." I have known speedometers that behaved like this when the wheels were the wrong size.
GDP counts activity. It does not count who received the activity. A mining boom, a population surge and a rebuild after a flood all look like growth. One of them is a dividend. One of them is more people sharing the same pie. One of them is putting the house back. They are not interchangeable, however tidy the press release.
Per person, the story often changes sign. That is the version that belongs on the front page. We print the other one because it is larger and, inconveniently, happier.
Which, if we are being precise, is the rub.