Comments on: Measuring Output of the GDP Factory

By: B.B.

B.B. — Thu, 11 May 2017 15:30:07 +0000

Maybe PSST is good or maybe not.

But your critique seems to go deeper. Forget practical issues of measurement in the real world. There is a vast and old literature on price indexes and aggregation theory. You seem to have rejected that entire literature as irredeemably useless and irrelevant.

The way I see it, business cycle theory is one thing, and measurement is something else. I recommend you don’t confuse them.

Maybe GDP measurement is just fine, and measures of business cycles are accurate, and PSST is true also.

By: Andrew'

Andrew' — Thu, 11 May 2017 13:58:30 +0000

We have people putting in expensive residential solar based on virtue signalling and green persuasion in places that should be some of the last places to get solar coverage. People aren’t usually making rational calculated decisions. And half a rational calculated decision is often worse than no calculations at all.

If you want to argue that we need massive investment in research, I’m with you. But massive spending on roll-out I’m skeptical of.

By: Andrew'

Andrew' — Thu, 11 May 2017 13:56:19 +0000

“In Socal desert with high SCE”

But Solar is a persuasion play. You should be telling people NOT to buy solar so that the solar is cheaper and more available to people with good insolation…

By: Handle

Handle — Wed, 10 May 2017 22:21:35 +0000

There’s a whole Bloomberg symposium on it. Are they all chasing a phantom?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/special-reports/reviving-productivity

By: Matthew Young

Matthew Young — Wed, 10 May 2017 19:51:39 +0000

Assuming nails, shingles and lumber are used in construction, we would expect the inventory variance of nails, shingles and lumber to be equal. If not, either the nail guy, or the shingle guy is late to arrive, and that is unproductive.

By: collin

collin — Wed, 10 May 2017 18:37:30 +0000

In general numbers and stats tell a story but it is important to understand what they are actually saying. AEI did a chart saying one person for coal equals 2 workers on natural gas versus 79 workers on solar with obvious implication that coal is really great. Of course, they did not the labor of captial expeditures, nor the long range ability of solar. (In Socal desert with high SCE, our solar paid for itself after 6 years.)