What Is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

Gross domestic product (GDP) is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic health.

William Petty came up with a basic concept of GDP to attack landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1654 and 1676. The modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934.

The U.S. economy shrunk at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 32.9 percent during the second quarter of 2020 as the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic spurred an economic collapse of record-breaking speed and size, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Between April and June, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk at a pace that would have wiped out roughly a third of the value of the economy if extended over 12 months, according to the Commerce Department’s advance estimate of second-quarter growth. It is the largest one-quarter plunge in economic growth since the federal government began reporting quarterly GDP data.

Neither the Great Depression nor the Great Recession nor any of the more than three dozen economic slumps over the past two centuries have ever caused such a sharp drain over so short a period of time.

The Great Depression began in the United States as an ordinary recession in the summer of 1929. The downturn became markedly worse, however, in late 1929 and continued until early 1933. Between the peak and the trough of the downturn real gross domestic product (GDP) fell almost 30 percent.

So here we are in the middle of history. Like many things that happen in history you don't see them as they are happening. Looking back you start to appreciate what happened. This is one of those moments. You are witnessing our Country falling into something worse than even the Great Depression. Looking back what will we call it? It is here now and it is time to prepare for the immediate future. Owning physical gold and silver, like during the Great Depression is more important now than at any time in history.