Some demographics of the anti-vaccination movement
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccinations, vaccines
The average American household was poorer in 2013 than it was in 1983 – Vox
31 Jan 2015 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, population economics, poverty and inequality, technological progress Tags: Brad De Long, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, time machines
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3351202/vox-chart_net-worth-change-v2_1024.0.png)
US net worth rose considerably over that period, which is what you would expect to see.
Technology has improved and productivity increased, so society has a greater capacity for wealth building. America was also quite a bit older on average in 2013 than it was in 1983, so average wealth should have gone up.
But all of these gains went to the top 20 percent of the population. It’s worse than that, actually.
Over 100 percent of the gains went to the top 20 percent, because the bottom 60 percent of the population got poorer.
What does this claim by Matthew Yglesias exactly mean? He writes frequently on economics, so his editor must think he knows something about it.
http://t.co/0hEAL8X1kS—
EPI Chart Bot (@epichartbot) July 04, 2015
If 60% of the population got poorer as compared to 1983, they would be better off stepping into a time machine to go back to 1983. That is the only logical interpretation of this claim about 60% of the population. I owe this time machine thought experiment to Brad De Long.
Of course, going back to 1983, would involve giving up all products and services invented since then, and all product upgrades since then.
https://twitter.com/classicepics/status/561432237976322048
More importantly, for a good proportion of the population, they have become very sick or die immediately when they stepped out side of the Time Machine. This is because of shorter life expectancies in 1983 and the unavailability of a whole range of lifesaving medicines.
Am I just pedantic because I want access to crucial diabetic and other medications unavailable 30 years ago? No Internet, no cable, no international travel and no mobile phones.
In his original thought experiment, De Long asks how much you would want in additional income to agree to go back in time to a specific year. De Long was an economic historian examining the differences in living standards as compared to 1890 and 1990 and how that gap is greatly underestimated in economic statistics. De Long would have refused to go into the time machine to return to 1890 unless he could pack a very large bag to take with him:
I would want, first, health insurance: the ability to go to the doctor and be treated with late-twentieth-century medicines.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was crippled by polio. Without antibiotic and adrenaline shots I would now be dead of childhood pneumonia.
The second thing I would want would be utility hookups–electricity and gas, central heating, and consumer appliances.
The third thing I want to buy is access to information–audio and video broadcasts, recorded music, computing power, and access to databases.
None of these were available at any price back in 1890.
Average life expectancy for girls born in 2057 will be 100?!
28 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in population economics Tags: life expectancy, The Great Escape
HT: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912391/Now-s-gran-old-age-Average-life-expectancy-girls-born-2057-ONE-HUNDRED.html
The Great Escape was very real: infant mortality version
23 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: infant mortality, The Great Escape
People queued up for hours when polio vaccine first became available
22 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccines
What Oxfam doesn’t want you to know: global capitalism means there’s less poverty than ever » Spectator Blogs
19 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: Leftover Left, Oxfam, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
We are, right now, living through the golden age of poverty reduction.
Anyone serious about tackling global poverty (and I’m afraid we have to exclude Oxfam from this category) has to accept that whatever we’re doing now, it’s working – so we should keep doing it.
We are literally on the road to an incredible goal: the abolition of poverty, as we know it, within our lifetime.
Those who care more about helping the poor than hurting the rich will celebrate the fact – and make sure free trade and global capitalism keep spreading so as to finish the job.
There has been tremendous medical progress against the key modern killers
14 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: medical progress, The Great Escape
The declining lethality of heart disease, #cancer, & stroke
(USA, last 50 years)nyti.ms/1D7d23O http://t.co/6Gh1ce3a4n—
Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) January 10, 2015
The Great Escape: survival rates from leukaemia
13 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: Quacks, The Great Escape
A coal mine elevator, 1900
12 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics Tags: The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Recent Comments