Going beyond GDP

Does money buy happiness? Can wellbeing be measured? Does growth equal progress? These may sound like esoteric questions, but they are at the heart of efforts to move beyond GDP to develop more accurate ways of measuring human development. Shot in Canada and Europe, this clip shows how rampant growth can lead to ruin, how disasters can be good for the economy and how rising GDP doesn't benefit everyone.
Download: http://ec.europa.eu./avservices/video/video_prod_en.cfm?type=detail&prodi...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• EUtube
• EU
• growth
• GDP
• progress
• wellbeing
• happiness
• Canada
• European
• Commission
• wealth
• money

[JWFau]

I guess that's one advantage the EU has over the US. They consider this sort of thing. They are not purely economic like the US is, they deal with other things.

[Epihash]

Long Live the EU

[freis72]

Most posts here missed the point of this video. This is about measuring wellbeing, not politics, and when it comes to measuring wellbeing there is no doubt that GDP is not enough.

[archdeaconj]

It's true, GDP includes the value of work done cleaning up industrial pollution, manufacturing and distributing pharmaceuticals for goodness knows how many ailments and illnesses caused by polution, treatment for cancers caused by chemical additives, persticides, herbicides, growth hormones in lifestock etc. It includes the money spent on adverts persuading you to buy what you don't need, or hadn't wanted, on competitive sales techniques, armaments, propaganda, and on and on.

[paligirl99]

there is nothing and were is the lunch

[paligirl99]

there is nothing hell this videio

[ConspiracyoftheRich]

wealth distribution IS the issue people should care about. I would moan about the other billionaires but some "libertarians" might claim they earned it fair and square - so check out "Jonathan Harmsworth" - he is a billionaire due to inherited wealth. LONG LIVE FEUDALISM!

[serghey86]

because We don't want to eat GO food or cloned animals... so i don't care how much money thay spend on agriculture as long as the food is natural/organic/GO-free etc.

[marcosabraam]

I quote 5 words: "There is no free lunch!"

[Mortarattack]

I think the most scandalous thing in the EU is the amount of money it wastes for farm subsidies!! Why does it have to spend 40% of its budget on something which employs something like 1% of its population?????

[declan3906]

Noam Chomsky once said "Australia was the only country in the world, consciously moving towards 3rd world status" as it digs everything out of the ground and sells it.

[eccemarco]

I agree whith what bgturk says about externalities. We've never calculated the externalities, nor the bad effects of economic development. When such GDP growth leads us to a non-sustainable exploitation of resources, how to take it into account? We are consuming all the petroleum, who is going to consider the loss of resources in the GDP calculation???