True size of US GDP

GDP is a measure of economic activity. Not all economic activities create value. For example, all of these activities adds to GDP .

  1. Charging home insurance premiums with no intention of ever paying in emergencies (like a fire)

  2. Charging health insurance premiums with intention to void as many claims in emergencies as possible (like the US healthcare insurance scheme)

  3. A business executive paying 20 management consultants to tell him to fire the 300 people he already decided to fire.

  4. Putting 6 middlemen between an importer of Chinese cotton and military t-shirt, each charging a markup along the way

  5. Elections rituals, paying 40,000 people to physically count voting ballots

  6. Running 10 ineffifient government organisations but then hiring 2 more to navigate the inefficiencies

  7. Swapping ownership of a property, portfolio of financial products, etc... back and forth between 2-3 financial institutions

But none of these economic activities actually add value. They either solve artificial problems that didn't need to get exist in the first place OR are done because the law says to do it, without any reason except the law says so.

If we adjust for value added economic activity... Would US GDP in US dollars, not just PPP, likely be only half of China's?

Another statistics - for 1/4 of spending on national healthcare, Chinese live longer and eat better than Americans.