Cheney's EBay Economics

Dick Cheney made the following astonishing claim today about our nation's economy: The accepted economic indicators, such as unemployment figures and consumer spending, can't be trusted because they don't include the money people make by selling stuff on eBay. "That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago," His Creepiness told an Ohio audience. "Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay."

Well, er, that's true, but eBay's revenues are in fact included in the Commerce Department's estimates of GDP. And according to a poster on DailyKos, the average income people earn from eBay is around $300 a year, which only counts as employment if you live in Nepal.