But when a house owner cashes in an increase in house prices, either by selling (which drives down the house price level) or by borrowing (which helps keep house prices high) and spends that cash, that counts as an increase in GDP.

Meanings have become therefore even more precious commodities and the powerful have armies of lawyers and PR experts trying to redefine them to their advantage, so it is a difficult battle (I am indebted for the essence of this argument to Robert Anton Wilson).

It is not a new situation, just the expansion of a very old situation. How old? Well, Confucius said that the problems of state could be solved by giving proper meaningful names to things and concepts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names Confucius believed that social disorder often stemmed from failure to perceive, understand, and deal with reality. Fundamentally, then, social disorder can stem from the failure to call things by their proper names, and his solution to this was the rectification of names

But of course the powerful and their word-warriors or shysters have different goals…

–Economy, GDP: The guy goes to Best Buy, buys the 50ʺ TV made in China, and maxes out his credit card in the process. That transaction is entered into the calculation of the GDP. Ditto when real estate got “flipped”: every time a moron bought a condo, that transaction entered the GDP; when he sold it to an even greater moron, that transation, too, entered the GDP. In a society which has no industry, the GDP is really a measure of how fast that society goes into debt.

–Home Owner: How can one own his home when the bank is about to foreclose on him?

–Family, mom, dad: How can Emily have two daddies and still call that a family? (It’s not her fault; I feel sorry for Emily.)

–Defense Contractor

–Justice (Dept., Ministry, whatever applies to your country)

–Unemployed, Unemployment: Only what/who enters the government’s lists as such. Sometimes even the term “job” is a stretch or outright fictitious.

–Cost of Living: Again what the government wants us to believe; leaves out (at least in the US) costs of fuel, housing, food.

–Inflation: See above.