A Modest Proposal: Let's Have Two GDPs

So here is a modest proposal: Let's have two GDPs. One based on the current model, which would reflect corporate profits, which are up 46 percent. And another that would factor in such things as joblessness; the inability of wages to keep up with steep increases in medical, housing and education costs; the 34 million Americans living in poverty; and the 43 million with no health insurance.

Taking a step in this direction, Redefining Progress, a think tank dedicated to promoting sustainability, has developed what it calls the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an alternative measure of economic growth that factors in close to two dozen aspects of our economic well-being that the GDP ignores. The group's Executive Director Michel Gelobter describes the GPI as "the GDP minus heart attacks, prison time and clear-cut forests. But adding back in volunteerism and time people spend with their families." Just last week the group released its latest GPI analysis, which found that current GDP figures overestimate the health of our economy by $7 trillion.

With that damning figure, maybe the Kerry campaign can finally force the Bushies to take off the rose-colored shades they've been hiding behind and allow the American people to see them for what they indisputably are: "the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen."