We Live Longer Than Ever, Food's Never Been Cheaper, Economy's Never Been More Efficient
Read my full post here at the Enterprise blog.
CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Monday, December 07, 2009
Read my full post here at the Enterprise blog.
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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12 Comments:
There is still a major obsesity problem (esp in children) that needs to be stopped. Obsesity is not only disgusting but it costs a lot of money to treat throughout one's life.
It's seriously hard to imagine why someone would let him/herself get out of shape.
If the trend continues, I'm pretty fearful life expectancy will decrease with these people pulling it down.
Does this mean we can ease up on agriculture subsidies?
Yes, wipe out ag subsidies and food stamps. That's $100 billion right there.
$1 trillion over next 10 years.
But does this chart--that life is better than ever--represent the triumph of market-intervention USA-style? US taxes are good?
Also, I read today the Danish economy is 80 percent larger than in 1980. Massive growth.
stevedp86 said... ...
It's seriously hard to imagine why someone would let him/herself get out of shape.
Really? Getting fat is a whole lot easier than staying in shape. And there's not really a penalty for it. Medical expenses get spread among the pool of insured, or the government in a lot of cases.
Have you seen those lap band commercials where they say "if your doctors agree you need the surgery, your insurance should pay"? That's how people are beginning to solve their problem. Get so obese it becomes a medical necessity to get surgery.
And cancer rates keep plunging and survival rates keep going up.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091207/hl_nm/us_cancer_usa
It's obviously easier to get fat...but don't people have any self respect or control anymore?
Oh yeah, no.
There should be special insurance for fat people with higher costs and surcharges like there are with smokers.
The problem is that we have put ourselves in a situation where our bodies are not adapted to live. Historically and pre-historically food was scare and famine was common. If ones biology was adapted to store food more efficiently it was a reproductive advantage.
Now we have put ourselves into a situation where there is a surplus of food, so what was a survival advantage is no longer one. (Of course biology does not care what happens past 55 anyway, as at that age you are no longer involved in reproduction). Biologically if you killed everyone off after reproductive age it would not make much difference.
Part of this is shown by cats, dogs, horses and some reptiles among others having the same obesity problem as humans, and cows exhibiting it in spades, but we call it marbling there. Since the problem is common it is related to the environment in which we lived pre-historically and realistically until 100 years ago.
Further we have introduced the most addictive substance widely and it is perfectly legal sugar. From what I have seen sugar is as bad for the liver as ethanol. (IT is the fructose not the glucose in sugar that is bad, but the fructose makes sugar sweet.) We are adapted to eat fructose only in fruit, but we have moved to having sugar in almost everything we eat. So rather than tax sugary soft drinks lets be simple about it and tax sugar and its equivalents (but we do tax sugar in the us, just not high enough).
..and viagara is cheaper?
A comment on the bottom graph, other studies show that the carbon intensity of our energy sources has dropped from 1.5 to 1 (1990=1) from 1900 to 1990. This partly relates to the carbon intensity of various fuels, coal being 1 oil being 1/2 and natural gas being 1/4. So plus or minus the issue of short term price trends, we have been decarbonizing our energy supply, plus reducing the energy needed per unit of gdp as shown.
So put another way the whole climate change issue can be phrased as do we need to accelerate the decarbonization and overall energy intensity trend? If so how do you do it?
Benny:
well, 80 % growth of GDP in 29 years is around 2 % a year, not really amazing...
> It's seriously hard to imagine why someone would let him/herself get out of shape.
1) A lot of this "obesity" problem comes from changing the rules defining "obese" in the last 50 years.
2) At least a portion of any remaining real problem derives from young kids being far more sedentary, both for direct reasons and for indirect reasons --
a) Kids are more likely to play video games than to go out and play in the afternoon
b) Lots of schools have cut back on PE times in order to expand school "administration".
c) There's a lot less "neighborhood" than there used to be, even in neighborhoods. When I was 10,12,14, I went out after school and ran around with other kids doing things, without direct adult supervision. This generation has far more expectations of "supervised" entertainment, if they are to be outside. The former, of course, encourages kids to be individual and self-sufficient. The latter encourages kids to be dependent on others to tell them What to Do. I wonder who would prefer the latter experiences for children growing up?
The flip side of "c" is that, in the absence of a specific organized activity, the kids are at home playing video games, and doing less physical activity. They get less exercise, yet still tend towards eating a lot as kids are hardwired to do.
how about running a comparison of that data to other OECD countries?
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