GDP

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total market value of all the goods and services produced within a nation during a specified period, usually one year. This is only the production within the country's borders, as opposed to the GnP which is the goods produced by the country's citizens alone.

The use of this measure for fiscal policy purposes is itself often seen as disinformation and is widely thought to lead to uneconomic growth. No economists defend the use of GDP to measure actual economic growth as it contains both public goods and public bads. Many now advocate measuring well-being as a means of determining money supply policy, among them some G8 Finance Ministers including (former Canadian finance minister and likely next Prime Minister Paul Martin, Jr.).