In our modern day and age of economics, the health of the economy is usually measured by consumption. How much is being spent. So, governments and large companies look at measures such as gross domestic product (GDP) as the single most important metric to track. GDP is a measure of how much money is spent – that’s all. It doesn’t track who is spending, or where they got the money. Was it from their paychecks? From savings? From borrowing? Economists don’t care care. After all, to paraphrase famous investor Ray Dalio, “one person’s spending is another person’s income.” Even if that spending comes from borrowing. From ... (full story)