Statistics and measurement are insidious like that. Sometimes you're just not measuring the right things, or the way you are measuring just tells you exactly what you think it should.
What does GDP mean to a worker making only enough to afford to pay medical bills or the rent?
What does * per capita do to assuage the suffering of the mother of 3 working 3 dead end jobs and living out of her car?
What good is the S&P500 closing up 6 points when most can barely afford to put more than what there company matches into the market?
What does anything the Dow does mean to anyone who's retirement on Social Security barely covers what they need to merely remain alive?
Economic modeling seems like it has done one and only one thing well.
Create work for economists to do.
That is exactly what they want. The modern world of cost-benefit analysis and economic modeling has been unkind to the whimsical. They want emotions, narrative, and oratory--not reason and data--to guide policy.