Any way you slice it, the economy is sluggish. But last week the Commerce Department began highlighting the gross domestic product instead of the more familiar gross national product as its preferred gauge of the economy's health. Both measure the total output of goods and services. But the GNP, in use since 1941, covers production by a country's workers wherever they are in the world. The GDP, which the rest of the industrialized world uses, covers only the production within a nation's borders. Unfortunately, this statistical lens doesn't improve the current picture. The new figures show the economy grew 1.7% in...
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