Alejandro · @alebusta
2nd May 2020 from TwitLonger
Question
In this global confinement in which a large part of humanity has been involved, one of the great concerns that governments face apart from the health crisis is the economic debacle. A large number of companies, and dependent, independent and informal workers are at risk of economic subsistence due to confinement, as a result of the reduction in consumption, production, and investment, the other side of the coin of which is the gross domestic product. Following this logic, it becomes quite obvious that the drop in production and consumption of goods and services that are counted in the GDP is due to fewer airplane flights, fewer meals in restaurants, fewer purchases in retail stores, fewer taxi services, fewer trips to the movies, fewer beers in bars, etc.
But at the same time, there is an emergence or resurgence of a number of goods that could fall within the definition of public goods, which generate value, but whose value is not susceptible to being measured by national accounts. Today, an undetermined number of people are consuming these goods, which in turn are being provided by another number of people without any economic transaction being involved and which at the end of the day have a great impact on people's well-being and capacities.
Cooking recipes, live yoga classes, meditation, fitness routines, data science courses, automotive mechanics, programming, musical composition, book clubs, live sessions of artists, poets, comedians and experts in anything, are being produced and consumed in large quantities, and in most cases increases the wealth of both individual and collective knowledge, in addition to individual welfare.
Being fully aware that this "market", even though it is free, is out of reach of everyone and that somehow it might seem a little dissociated to think about these positive aspects of the pandemic when there are people who have lost their sources of income and their main concern is to have food and shelter, I feel completely clueless - feel very ignorant about this - how and where is all that value that is being created accounted for?
I am very interested in learning more about it from experts like you,
Thank you for your time.