We have the worst health care system in the world, take the shortest vacations and save the least. Are we overdue for getting off that path to desperation called the "career?"

That re-evaluation took a surprising turn as Pulitzer prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz commented on the way our wealth is estimated. The GDP, is deeply flawed because it concentrates on wealth alone.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, urged world leaders to drop an obsession with examining gross domestic product and focus more on broader measures of prosperity.
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So many things that are important to individuals are not included in GDP,” said Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor. “There needs to be an array of numbers but we need to understand the role of each number. We may not be able to aggregate everything together.”

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Assessing government’s contribution to economic output, which ranges from 39 percent in the U.S. to 48 percent in France, is one of the shortcomings of the GDP model, as is its difficulty in estimating improvements in quality of products such as cars instead of just quantity, Stiglitz said. Similarly, increased household debt may drive up output numbers, whereas that doesn’t amount to a real increase in wealth, he added.

While Stiglitz doesn’t recommend dropping GDP altogether, he wants governments to consider such matters, along with issues of environmental sustainability, in policy making.

“Most governments make a fetish out of it. If you take one message out of our report, make it avoid GDP fetishism,” he said. “The message is to encourage political leaders away from that.”

Workers in Europe take extended vacations, make demands on their government for adequate support systems, and are given the right to health care that this country’s right wing is desperately trying to keep out of public hands. I don’t need to ask what’s wrong with this picture. We are kept in a feudal relationship that leading economists worldwide are unable to explain – wealth alone does not give a true picture of our worth.

In addition, the environment suffers from our commuter fixation, as much as we do. There is a healthy movement toward rearranging that dysfunctional habit.

Let me introduce you to Take Back Your Time.

A joint U.S./Canadian project, on October 24th the "Chill Out" day will call attention to the ways we can start to change the attitude that is ruining our individual lives and the world around us.

The events, coordinated by the organization "350" (www.350.org) seek controls on carbon outputs that would return the amount of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere to 350 parts per million or less, the amount considered necessary for a sustainable human future.

This is a beginning, and one of many ways we can start taking back the value that has been wrested from us by right-wing corporate worship. Eight years of domination led to disaster, yet there is still a push from the right to keep the public interest hidden.

The benefits of our time and our use of it are ours to control, by our voice and by our demand. It’s past time to exercise that control, and well past time to be part of the world instead of its end product.