GDP is a proxy for 'amount of work done that people were paid for'.

If I pay Fat Tony to break your legs, and then you pay a doctor to put them back together, this whole adventure increased GDP, but is a net-negative-sum activity.

"People have to do more work to accomplish the same amount of results" isn't a worthy goal in itself.

And me not working due to broken legs is somehow not relevant to the GDP? My capital being misallocated is not relevant to GDP? I think your example is quite likely to lower GDP...

Unless you earn more than the 200k the doctor was paid plus the 50k Fat Tony rightfully earned, the GDP grew.

You might want to think this through some more.

> My capital being misallocated is not relevant to GDP?

It's not. If I steal a million dollars from you, the net impact on GDP is ~0. Hell, if you were keeping it in your mattress, and I spend it on drugs and parties, GDP will actually go up.

GDP is a useful number, but it's not the only useful number.

If you steal 1 million out of my payroll account, GDP might go down because I might close my shop, for example. It really is not so simple.

Could one carefully construct examples, sure, does that scale - not so much.