GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP) AS DISEASE INDICATOR

Can a country survive when it is more profitable to be sick or broken than to be well or repaired? Soon the major portion of our Gross National Product will not be about production but about health care. No one can make money out of keeping people healthy, so we are worth more to our country sick and well. What if you stop receiving unemployment benefits? Will the GNP go down because you have nothing to spend. Of course, these ideas are only true if the only measure of value is the economy.

This is true of almost everything. For example, instead of talking about the life of one person, what if we examine the value of one marriage and family. If a husband and wife are united in their goals and committed to their marriage, they will work diligently to purchase a home, care for it properly, raise children, educate them, and try to be productive in the community. They will be of great worth that community as will their children as they grow into responsible adults. But they will not be very worth as much financially to the community because they will be frugal and consume less.

But they will be worth more, financially, to the economy, if they divorce. They will no longer be able to help each other out. There won’t be two people to help with the children and there will have to be two houses instead of one. Instead of producing part of their own food they will have to purchase more because there is no time to garden. They will have to purchase more processed foods because there is less time to cook. They will eat out more often. There will be legal bills, and trips back and forth to share children, and more cell phones so the children can stay in contact. More computers, TV’s, stoves, refrigerators, furniture, cars and such will be needed for two households.

The divorced family is worth so much less to the community generally, but so much more to the financial economy. Could the same thing be said for neighborhoods, communities, counties, states, and countries?

Perhaps the GNP could be used as a measure of just how bad and inefficient our nation is: the higher the GNP the worse off we are in all the things that matter most. Is the GNP a direct predictor of divorce? Could it be used as an indicator of ill health or failing communities? What happens to the GNP when people are paid to not work? I haven’t done the statistics, but it sort of seems like someone ought to look at that.