Re: equation to describe the economy

On 29 May 2005 12:27:27 -0700, "Quirk" <quirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> On 27 May 2005 11:40:15 -0700, "Quirk" <quirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> But very little to do with the economy. Suppose you had a country
>> where they ate a certain food, and unbeknownst to them, it was causing
>> a lot of catastrophic birth defects?
>> Or alteratively, suppose it
>> suppressed the spontaneous miscarriage of grossly defective fetuses?
>
>Then I would suspect they where underfunding their public health
>research and the dissemination of the results.

Maybe it's just too subtle and complex a relationship.

>> I've lived in Japan, which is #2 on your list. The quality of life
>> there is not that good, IMO, and the Japanese are by and large not a
>> happy people (with good reason: they are being brutally oppressed by
>> one of the most egregious systems of landowner privilege in the
>> world).
>
>In your opinion, if the quality of life is so low there, why is the
>rent so high? There must at least be strong demand.

The main reason is that the supply of floor space is artificially
suppressed and directly tied to land area by the Floor Area Ratio Law.
I.e., if you want more floor space, you are compelled by law to pay a
landowner rent for more land. That is why per-capita residential
floor space in Japan is microscopic and rents sky-high. Also, the
services and infrastructure are among the best in the world, and
because of the population density, the margin is pretty far out.

>> But the women rarely smoke, drink to excess, use illegal
>> drugs, or make other unhealthy lifestyle choices,
>
>However, from my experience, the women in Germany are not much
>different than US women in that regards, if anything, they smoke and
>drink more, yet the numbers are still much better than the US.

Yeah, but they're not nearly as obese as American women. And although
I haven't lived in Germany, my impression is that the drug problem
there is barely visible compared to the US drug problem.

>To me Infant Mortality Rate tells a lot about the situation in a
>country, I agree however that it is not the whole picture, but IMHO, no
>_single_ statistic tells you more, and when you try to use _composite_
>statistics (i.e. HDI) your numbers get lost at sea in the weighting.

IMO HDI is better.

-- Roy L
.