If something happens (an increase in activity, or a decrease in activity) in any given year --- then it is counted.
Next year, the same: If something happens (an increase in activity, or a decrease in activity) in that particular year --- then it is counted.
All counting is irrespective of any previous years....
You've already said that, I've already said words to the same effect, and I've never argued otherwise.
But if you have a temporary effect in one year, and that temporary effect goes away in a later year, then just counting each year will show it added, and then will show it removed later, as the actual measured GDP goes down.
I'm not calling for, or saying there is some sort of adjustment for what happened in previous years. And during this whole conversation (or my whole life), I've never done so. I think you should do as the official stats actually do, just measure for each year.
You introduced to the conversation the idea of adjusting for/ removing the temporary gains from the stats. If your going to do that then later on when you get a real world unadjusted decrease, because the temporary factor is removed, you'd have to add back in what you temporarily subtracted.
I think putting such negative and then positive (or perhaps positive, then negative) adjustments is more likely to create confusion and serve as a source of error, so I'd prefer not to make such adjustments (and the official stats don't), but if your going to adjust one way you have to adjust both ways. |
