GDP is just one metric, what about others?

"The obsession with GDP numbers must stop," wrote M Bhusnurmath, about the constant debate between politicians about which party can generate faster growth. It is like 2 little boys arguing, "My dad's bigger than your dad." GDP was described as, "One of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century," by the US Department of Commerce. Philipp Lepenies described it as the "most powerful statistical figure in human history" and yet it is "not a self-explanatory figure like the temperature in Fahrenheit, or the total calories of your breakfast". Economic activities are converted into numbers and added up and unpaid work is not counted. "So, as Economics 101 would put it, if a homemaker were to employ a maid at home, GDP would go up without any increase in underlying economic activity." True, but the maid would spend her salary which would add to total demand. Economists have trouble calculating GDP because the most widely used services in today's world, like Google, Facebook and Wikipedia, are free, wrote Prof R Hausmann. The growth of the 'gig economy' is creating problems for governments to calculate its contribution and growth rate. The improvement in second quarter growth in GDP to 6.3%, from 5.7% in the first quarter, is "The mirage of economic recovery," wrote Prof Himanshu. Rural demand has fallen sharply, because of a fall in prices of agricultural products, and this has spread to other sectors. Food prices rose by 1.9% in October, having turned negative in the middle of the year. The government has already used up 96% of the fiscal deficit target, so has to restrict spending, private consumption is weak and exports grew at just 1.2%, the weakest in Asia. The outlook for India's economy is bleak, wrote SA Aiyer. "No country has become a miracle economy with 7-8% growth without export growth of 15-20%," he wrote. What is this economic growth when we constantly run a current account deficit, except in 2003-04, which means money keeps going to other countries? The government may be further constrained because collections under the Goods and Services Tax are not up to expectations, which is bad news because the services sector contributes up to 60% of the economy. So what is to be done? Blame the Reserve Bank for not reducing policy rate by at least 100 basis points when retail inflation is soft. Central government employees are to get an annual increment of 3% and Dearness Allowance, which means cost of living, is up 5%. This is after DA reached 125% of basic salary and was merged with it, effectively doubling salaries last year. If inflation is low why is the government hiking wages by over 10%? Someone is not telling the truth.