The tiny Asian kingdom of Bhutan, known by some as The Mouse That Prattled, is the main source of the notion of Gross National Happiness. This is best summarised as the idea that economists should attempt to count the uncountable; its proponents, typically of a leftish cast, appear to consider “money isn’t everything” a truly innovative idea.

Why stop there? What about...

OTHER CONCEIVABLY IMPORTANT ECONOMIC INDICES

Gross National Bitterness: An important dataset which considers the annual number of sneers, eye-rolls, and pooh-poohings in a given population.

Consumptive Confidence Index: Measures buying intentions among 19th-century poets who are dying of tuberculosis.

Housing Non-Starters: Count of households unwilling to consider Xander and his python as potential roommates.

Bhutanese Trade Balance: Indicator of the amount of misery Bhutan must import to achieve parity with its happiness exports.

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EBITDA: Considers the economic status of the mean old lady who lives above the dollar store and whose name is possibly Croatian.

Gross National Confusion: Measure of a population’s ability to understand economic indicators; potentially unreliable.

National Indifference Index: Counts the number of friends made by Bhutanese economists at any given party; traditionally an imaginary number.

Barely Endurable Goods Orders:  Calculates a given population’s ability to withstand infomercials for Schticky Reuseable Lint Rollers, BlanKid Buddies (the 4-in-1 child’s blanket, backpack, pillow and plush animal), and Secret Glo Self-Tanning Gloves.

D’Oh Jones: Benchmarks the total number of head-slappingly dumb shenanigans in any given bumbling-dad demographic.

Gross Domestic Panic: Summary of a population’s annual out-freakings, panty-bunching incidents, and losses of shit.

Ensured Unemployment Rate: Annualised ratio of job interviews vs. facial tattoos, nip slips and nervous belching.

Capacity Utilization: Quarterly measure of being absolutely unable to eat another bite of this delicious Bhutanese yak chop.

National Ennui Product: Precise and monetised count of a national economy’s feelings of vague discontent and restlessness; also measures a given populace’s incidence of sighing.

Non-Inventory Levels: Counts a nation’s annual development of pointless innovations, i.e. sporks, night-vision sunglasses, Real Housewives of Vancouver.

Non-Farm Payrolls: Indicator of individuals’ willingness to visit farms, i.e. “If you’ll stop talking about Bhutanese happiness and unpasteurised yak milk, I’ll gladly pay you five bucks.”

Lyle Neff is a contributing writer and political satirist for The Propagandist.