 Let's begin with the topic of what is economic growth? It basically means that we have a greater ability to produce goods and services that we value Of course the the mainstream economists are all tied up in statistics You know they talk about the consumer driven economy When actually you have to produce before you can consume Economic growth means that our standard of living has improved our standard of living What's the standard living? For Americans for example, but we have houses with plumbing and cars and TV sets and computers and iPhones and All sorts of clothes and all sorts of appliances. Our standard of living is higher than in most places around the globe That's because we've experienced a great deal of economic growth in terms of our ability to produce goods and services that we value One sort of noteworthy Measure of the standard of living Was the percentage of houses with indoor plumbing now? The kids here today would probably can't imagine the idea of living in a house Without toilets and indoor plumbing and running water But such was the case in the United States a hundred years ago Where many many houses Did not have indoor water or toilets you had to go outside to the outhouse you had to go outside and Get your own water from the well Okay, so that's Sort of a slap in the face about what's happened in terms of economic growth I just heard of a house recently or person recently that was talking about when they grew up in Columbus, Georgia And they had to install the water because there was no running water in their house Importantly it does not necessarily mean That government statistics are accurate measures of our standard of living Gross domestic product for example you probably heard of GDP Well, you can't rely just on GDP as a measure of your standard of living for example During World War two the gross domestic product or GDP in the United States increased remarkably because of the World War Unemployment shrank to almost zero because we sent millions of people Overseas to fight the war and very often were hurt or killed But if you looked at what people were consuming in America during World War two They were just as bad off as during the Great Depression in terms of food clothing transportation So on and so forth So don't be fooled by GDP Anybody can make GDP grow The Congress in the United States could pass a law tomorrow that says We're gonna offer a million jobs paying a hundred thousand dollars a year to dig ditches That would make GDP go up By billions and billions and billions of dollars and they could pass a law the next day that said we're gonna Hire a million people at a hundred thousand dollars to fill in all those little holes that the other million people were digging and GDP would go up But we wouldn't be better off. We would have lost the labor of two million people We'd be worse off even though GDP went up so numbers can be rigged You got to be leery of the statistics