Our textbook is deceptively straightforward to read, so I’d like to spend a paragraph talking about how to actively read a textbook. A method I have used successfully is to first look at all of the section headings i the chapter. Take a few moments to turn each of those headings into a questions. For example, Section 5-1’s Heading is “The Economy’s Income and Expenditure”. That can become “How are an economy’s incomes and expenditures defined?” or “What are an economy’s income and expenditure?”
Then, as you read the section, actively read for the answer to that question. It is a good idea to write these questions and answers down also.
Now, for this Reflection, choose the section heading for which you wrote a question you find interesting. In your Reflection give me the question, the answer, and a current events example of an application of the theory from the section.
In addition, look up current GDP of the US. What is it this quarter? Is it growing or shrinking? Why does that matter? This is a Covid question of course — how is Covid currently affecting GDP? Do we need to balance GDP and health? That is a critical question for this and the next pandemic — think about it as you learn about GDP.
5-5 Is GDP a Good Measure of Economic Well-Being?
My Question is “what are good measurements of economic well-being?”
GDP simply measures an economy’s income and expenditure on goods and services. It can be broken down and compared with an economy’s population and stated as GDP Per Person to show the average individual. We interpret this number to show the “success” of our people and our country, and we compare this success to other countries. This number leaves out a great many things to consider in a country’s success and output. GDP doesn’t measure the quality of our education, our art and music and poetry, our intelligence, integrity, courage, or wisdom. It does not measure our overall happiness. GDP also leaves out the distribution of income. Even if it shows an average per person, it doesn’t show income inequality. This one flaw in GDP I’d like to discuss further….
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/
https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/the-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world
According to the Happiest Countries Report – these don’t match GDP.
- Finland (43rd in Nominal GDP)
- Denmark – 37th
- Switzerland – 20th
- Iceland – 108th
- Norway – 29th
- Netherlands – 17th
- Sweden – 23rd
- New Zealand – 51st
- Austria – 26th
- Luxembourg – 69th
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
In the USA here are the richest top 15 people in our country:
- Jeff Bezos – $179 billion
- Bill Gates – $111 billion
- Mark Zuckerberg – $85 billion
- Warren Buffet – $73.5 billion
- Larry Ellison – $72 billion
- Steve Ballmer – $69 billion
- Elon Musk – $68 billion
- Larry Page – $67.5 billion
- Sergey Brin – $65.7 billion
- Alice Walton – $62.5 billion
- Jim Walton – $62.1 billion
- Rob Walton – $61.8 billion
- MacKenzie Scott – $57 billion
- Michael Bloomberg – $55 billion
- Charles Koch – $45 billion
Total for 15 people = $1.134 trillion dollars
2019 USA GDP was 21.44 trillion dollars
Over the past 50 years, the highest earning 20% of US households have steadily brought in a larger share of the country’s total income. In 2018, households in the top fifth of earners (incomes of $130,000/yr or more) brought in 52% of all US Income, more than the lower 4/5 combined.
In 2018, the top 5% of households ($248,729/yr) brought in 23%.
https://www.bea.gov/news/glance
Our USA Real GDP in the 2nd quarter of 2020 is -31.4% a very low downturn due to COVID19 or the Coronavirus. Still being down 31% sounds bad but look at a positive here in that the GDP was still $19.52 trillion. Which still has USA as the top economy in the world by a large margin.
https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/
- USA – Nominal GDP of $21.44 trillion
- China – Nominal GDP of $14.14 trillion
- Japan – Nominal GDP of $5.15 trillion
- Germany – Nominal GDP of $3.86 trillion
- India – Nominal GDP of $2.94 trillion
At the initial scare of Covid19 spreading into the United States in March 2020, the economy shut down to try and flatten the curve as the rate of infection was spreading at a 2.5x rate. Couple that with a 10% death rate at the beginning, and a dormant incubation period of 3-5 days while being infectious, we had no choice but to stop people being in public and make everyone stay at home until we got the spread under control. There is a debate going on now that we’ve had 6 months to study this virus in our country. Did we open too soon, too fast, not enough? Were states and counties given too much power to open or restrict movement of people as they chose to? Masks or no masks? It’s been interesting to watch how certain states remained open and didn’t force use of masks and how Covid19 has spread through those areas vs others.
I think we learned a lot in the past 6 months. First off, we learned how to treat people with Covid19 better. We learned who this virus kills and infects the worst. We learned how to slow the death rate from 10% down to 2.8% here in the USA. We learned how kids aren’t affected too much by it, but the elderly sure are. We learned how long the virus can stay on surfaces and in the air, and how close you need to be to catch it. We also had time to implement some spread containment measures like social distancing, masks, cleaning procedures, contact tracing, cluster management, etc. We defiantly don’t have it under control yet, but are we learning to live with it? I believe we are. We learned how we can’t just leave the economy closed down, but we must find the balance that works for the collective good. Other viruses we have learned to live with – the flu, hiv, etc. I have all faith in humanity finding a way to live with this one going around. Hopefully, like H1N1, MERS, or SARS, this one will go away someday soon.
https://www.vcuhealth.org/news/covid-19/comparing-covid-19-with-h1n1-and-other-viral-outbreaks
Dude.World 