It is very good you point out the fallacy of the GDP in measuring many things and esp. the fallacious energy efficiency increase of GDP production.

Not only is most of the stuff produced outside US, most of the energy expenditure for shipping those goods is calculated 'outside' US.

Further, US has while US has stopped being a nation of manufacturing, it has become a nation of financing. An ever increasing part of GDP growth is now coming from the financial sector. Most of that funny money is domestically based on debt that is growing at an exponential rate.

It doesn't take a first rate macro-economist to understand that this situation is unsustainable, regardless of how many illegal immigrants one takes into the country and refuses to give social benefits to.

And what US does, that Europe does in it's wake. Perhaps a little less efficiently and a decade later, but roughly the same nevertheless.

All the same problems outlined above can be attributed to most European old nations, even if not yet at the same degree of severity.

I no longer wonder why many people are not very optimistic about chances for real change :)