Class #7 9/16/11

An important thing that was said in the beginning of class was that the ability to command goods and services is what economists mean by being richer. Measured income is more than just income. It is a combination of multiple things that we care about. An example of this is that Rizzo loves buying earrings for his daughter. The reason isn't because he's saving money but that he enjoys picking out which earrings his daughter is going to wear that day. The pleasure that we get from being around things is what matters.
Materialism is very important to distribute wealth. The health of people has been correlated many times with   income. We estimate peoples wealth in history by looking at the amount of agricultural workers and how much they produce. We then take the amount that they produce and give the prices of todays products on the. From this we have learned that the poorest country in the world today is similar to normal societies a few hundred years ago relating to income.

Not all resources that countries trade are natural resources in that country. At the dawn of the industrial revolution, wealth between each person didn’t increase, but there were more people born who had the same wealth. This meant that there was more capital and products going around the country. During the industrial evolution there were many white elephant projects that occurred. The money for this came from others.

One thing that is bad about living in the past is that health care was not as good then. Isaac Newton died of kidney stones, Motzart died of strep throat, and queen Anne of England had all of her 18 kids die before the age of 11 as well as dying from gout. These are all minor health problems that occur today and can be cured in a short amount of time. Without a security blanket like we have today, there are many things that can kill us in the world.

Something interesting to think about is how today everyone has millions of servants working for them. These servants work for other people too and trade their services for an incentive. Society today responds to the needs of other people.

People in poverty live on the edge of life. In Haiti the price is currently rising of a dirt cookie. The fact that this is even a product is sad to think about. Dirt is not meant to be eaten but in extreme conditions whern theres nothing else to eat, extreme decisions have to be made. People in the past used to clean their clothes in urine, they couldn' have a cold drink, and normal city horses produced approximately 22 pounds of waste a day. 1/3 of agriculture used to go to feeding horses. Many people were infected with diseases because of the lack of plumbing. What would happen is that a fly would land on a piece of poop (50% bacteria). This fly would then land on peoples food transmitting the disease or bacteria. After the person ate the infected food they too became infected with the disease.

In 1970 a parked car produced more pollution than a car today that drives 10,000 miles. The life expectancy has greatly increased in the past couple hundred years mainly from better diets and increased health care. Before the industrial revolution, the average life expectancy was under 30. Today it is about 80. Every year, a new born's life expectancy increases by 1/2 a year from a child born the year before.

 The US delivers more babies than any other country for having the most superior health system compared to other countries. as we age people are living more comfortably than before as well. The standard of living conditions on increases over time.