> It could be possible to have high GDP with low paychecks… it basically means the entire economy mostly consists of the wealthy few buying and selling things to each other.

A similar thing happens when people talk about "total debt" in an economy. I like to bring up the scenario of 3 people trading a shiny rock around in a circle. Each time seller doubles the price and agrees to defer payment.

In this way, three kids can spend recess at school running the nation's average household debt to near-infinity! There are a few flavors of GDP calculation, but I expect it could yield some similarly odd results.

In both cases, the map is not the territory, and the metric is indirect/imperfect.