Forty years ago, Robert F. Kennedy reminded Americans that the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Gross National Product measure neither our national spirit nor our national achievement. [..] As he put it, "the Gross National Product [..] measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." (emphasis mine)What I hear: Don't bet on either GDP or Dow growing if you want your life to be worthwhile.
They used a couple of terms I hadn't heard before, including "short-termism", the "need to internalize externalities". From the context, I understand the former to mean "quarterly earnings, instant opinion polls, rampant consumerism and living beyond our means;" the latter, putting "a price on carbon." They also spoke of "the building of a 21st century Unified National Smart Grid, and the electrification of our automobile fleet." Now "electrification" is a word I have heard in this context before. In 1920, Vladimir Lenin explained:
Socialism is the Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.A simple algebraic transformation shows that, according to Mr. Lenin, Soviet power is Socialism minus electrification. I wonder what is Capitalism minus Dow and GDP, according to Messrs. Gore and Blood.
Gore & Blood?
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