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Cocaine Sales to Boost Italian GDP in Boon for Budget

DA60

DA60

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'Italy will include prostitution and illegal drug sales in the gross domestic product calculation this year, a boost for its chronically stagnant economy and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s effort to meet deficit targets.

Drugs, prostitution and smuggling will be part of GDP as of 2014 and prior-year figures will be adjusted to reflect the change in methodology, the Istat national statistics office said today. The revision was made to comply with European Union rules, it said.'

Cocaine Sales to Boost Italian GDP in Boon for Budget - Bloomberg
 
'A year ago it was the US which first "boosted" America's GDP by $500 billion - literally out of thin air - when it arbitrarily decided to include "intangibles" to the components that 'make up' GDP (in the process cutting over 5% from the US Debt/GDP ratio). Then Spain joined the fray. Then Greece. Then the UK. Then Nigeria, which showed those deveoped Keynesian basket cases how it is really done, when it doubled the size of its GDP overnight when it decided to change the base year of its GDP calculations. Now it is Italy's turn, and like everything else Italy does, this latest "revision" of the definition of GDP easily wins in the style points category. As Bloomberg reports, "Italy will include prostitution and illegal drug sales in the gross domestic product calculation this year." Yup: blow and hookers. And that, ladies and gents, how it's done.'

Hookers And Blow: How Changing The Definition Of GDP Officially Jumped The Shark | Zero Hedge
 
In anticipation of the US legalizing pot...maybe?

Seems to me, the only "GDP" worth mentioning is the taxed kind...
 
Italy will now have the fastest growing economy in the world.
 
Smoke & Mirrors is the best way to describe most government reports, whether unemployment, cost of living, inflation, body counts in wars or pretty much anything else. All they do is cook the numbers to give the rose-colored glasses effect to its propaganda efforts.
 
Carjosse said:
Italy will now have the fastest growing economy in the world.
Click to expand...

I wonder where they get the sales figures for these elements of the economy. Probably the same place our federal government gets them.
 
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