South Africa’s economy grows 5.3% in an instant as e-hailing, online prostitution, Airbnb, home solar, and mobile apps get added to GDP

[Newsfeed]

South Africa’s economy grows 5.3% in an instant as e-hailing, online prostitution, Airbnb, home solar, and mobile apps get added to GDP

Statistics South Africa said the economy was actually 5.3% larger than previously estimated as past GDP calculations excluded activity from illegal mining, online gambling, prostitution, e-hailing, home solar, and mobile apps.

 

[Scooby_Doo]

****in growing. Good stuff.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Why would they include illegal mining? The others should legitimately be included except that. Tax collection will also increase...

 

[gotaway]

Pimp my stats

 

[porchrat]

Illegal mining???? prostitution???

What illegal activities will next be included to pad economic growth figures? CIT robberies? Theft through political corruption? Those are some serious growth industries.

Imagine the jump if we could somehow count Eskom's incompetence and corruption as economic growth. 300+ billion in debt? Look at all that growth!!!!!!

 

[HumanShield]

98% of that 5.3% should be prostitution alone . Airbnb is like a support service to online prostitution since they rent out these Airbnbs to film content.

 

[Decarin]

Online prostitution economy...

 

[Swa]

LOL. Doesn't mean it actually grew. For percentage terms it should still be compared according to the old model. Also most of these illegal activities already funnel money to legitimate ones and so get counted anyway. Now can we change our inflation model? The price of punani has gone up. Or so I hear. Ask Gweezy.

 

[Swa]

Illegal mining???? prostitution???

What illegal activities will next be included to pad economic growth figures? CIT robberies? Theft through political corruption? Those are some serious growth industries.

Imagine the jump if we could somehow count Eskom's incompetence and corruption as economic growth. 300+ billion in debt? Look at all that growth!!!!!!

Well you have to ask yourself. If population growth has continually outpaced economic growth, how have people survived. Obviously it's through illegal activities.

 

[Scooby_Doo]

sooooo, debt to GDP is lower now?

 

[LoadShedder]

Sounds ridiculous but if other countries are counting prostitution and gambling then we have to for the sake of consistency. GDP is a useless measure if every country is calculating it differently.

 

[Swa]

Sounds ridiculous but if other countries are counting prostitution and gambling then we have to for the sake of consistency. GDP is a useless measure if every country is calculating it differently.

It's a pretty pointless measure in any case. Only things that count are employment numbers and whether the tax can support the social burden. Why the US employment figure is always the one thing everyone watches.

 

[Johand]

Sounds ridiculous but if other countries are counting prostitution and gambling then we have to for the sake of consistency. GDP is a useless measure if every country is calculating it differently.

That is why. EU has required its member countries to include it since 2014.

The funny country is Colombia - they have special calcs to take into account the cocaine business because legal or not it is a large part of their economy.

 

[Bad Ballie]

Cooking the books does not increase GDP, it just makes the ANC look less incompetent than they really are which is the whole point of this nothing burger.

 

[Sargeant]

This "online prostitution" is intriguing - how exactly do you transmit body parts over wifi? Let's just call it porn and be done with it!.