Note for clarity added later: the numbers discussed are nominal GDP in 2009 dollars and are already adjusted for inflation.

If we can no longer afford anything as a society, can we justify GDP increasing from $2 trillion to $17.5 trillion in the last 65 years?

If we are 8 times as wealthy as we once were, shouldn’t we be able to increase all social spending we used to have 8 times over and afford it easily as a society?

One of the below has to be true:

• We are wasting our resources as a society at a massive scale
• Measuring GDP is useless and has no meaning