Econ-Answer to Discussion Week 4

ECON-Answer to Discussion week 4 2/4/2014

Quality of Life and GDP.

In order to compare quality of life between two countries, certain things have to be considered, among them; population size, type of government, education and geographical region. For example, in a socialist country, standards of living and moral are low. There is no incentive to improve lives, the public infrastructure is poor and basic services are limited if functioning at all. For those that want a different life style, the best option is black market or migrates to other regions (countries) with different economic market like capitalism. If the country is run by a corrupt or nonfunctioning government, life for common citizens will be tough.

What exactly is high or low quality of life? If I am born in a country where there is no electricity, therefore no satellite TV or any electronics, would I be living a low quality of life? I grow my food, I get utility from farming or hunting, I am always around my neighbors, and in fact, we trade between ourselves. I don’t have to worry about CO2 emissions because I don’t have any motorized equipment. I don’t need to go to the gym and in the evening, we all sit down as a family to tell stories or talk about the day around a fire. Everyone in the community knows what they need to do for the whole community to live in harmony.

On the other hand, I live a high quality life, which is; I have to rush to work, work long hours, hardly see my family, and have all these health problems to deal with. Despite all the gadgets and electronic gizmos that are supposed to help me work smart, I still cannot find time to relax and enjoy life.

GDP

GDP is the gross domestic product of a country, which is market value of all the goods and services produced in a year. So, one would say that, GDP paints a picture of a countries’ development .e.g. public infrastructure and basic services. Problem with this is that, countries’ GDP do not take into account things...