The Politics of the GDP

We have national accounts in the US of reasonable quality going back to 1929. That is a century of national accounts. I would hate to end that. So I would be for keeping the bad numbers, having one office in the Department of Commerce keep the bad numbers at another department keeping the good numbers. You just want duplication of effort. Yes. As long as I've been an economist, we economists have well recognized that our system of accounting leaves out a lot of important things. Is it surprising to you that there hasn't been the political will to make these changes? There just isn't much interest outside of a narrow group of people who are not terribly influential.