Someone wrote in [personal profile] tcpip 2005-10-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

As I tried to post yeterday when your system accused me of being a spammer...;)....

GDP may increase, or decrease, due to Katrina. GDP came from the production that occurred in New Orleans; its destruction has caused that to be lost. If they abandon NO, GDP will drop. If they rebuild it with streets paved in gold, marbled halls, and $100k p.a. government jobs for every citizen, GDP will rise.

Of course, most likely something in between will happen. So we don't know if GDP will rise or fall as a result of it. So while it's true that Roger Kerr doesn't understand what the GDP actually (the measure of all the money spent in a country), it's also true that it won't necessarily rise. It depends on how much they spent rescuing and housing people, and how much they spend fixing the place up afterwards.

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