To: re3 who wrote (87155 ) 12/18/2000 6:19:53 PM From: Knighty Tin Read Replies (1) | Respond to Ike, Richebacher does it much better, but I'll try. First, I was a bit overenthusiastic. It is more like 5-8 times. I don't have the actual numbers at my desk right now, so these are approximations. We have had a situation the past 3 or 4 years where more than half of the growth in GDP has come from the sale of computers. The problem is, the GDP calculation of computer sales growth is about 5 to 8 times actual sales growth, depending upon the quarter. Why? Because you are now buying an 800 Mhz box for $1000 when you were buying a 300 Mhz box for $1500. So, the govt. thinks you are getting nearly 3 times the product for 2/3s the price. When you move this argument to servers and mainframes, it gets even more dramatic. So, something like $170 in sales growth has been counted as anywhere from $570 to $1000 in sales growth as far as contribution to GDP growth goes. This has been over half the growth rate nearly every quarter and was as great as 82% of the GDP growth rate one quarter.
