supply and demand<\/a> apply to how we operate families as well as a country.\u00a0 We can say that our supply of anything comes from providers, or worker bees.\u00a0 Our housing stock, automobile inventory, bushels of corn all come to us from people who are working to produce them.\u00a0 Other worker bees produce services: physicians, attorney, architects, and teachers.<\/p>\nThe sum total of what we produce is a function of how many people we have producing and how efficient they are.\u00a0 The extent of their job is to provide for the needs of everyone in our society.\u00a0 \u201cSociety\u201d can be as small or large as you want to define it; from a family to the world\u2019s population.\u00a0 However big it is, it will only be healthy if enough is produced to sustain it.<\/p>\n
Numbers are key to telling us how healthy we are in providing for our population.\u00a0 For example, when Social Security began operation in 1935, there were 35 workers paying into the system for every person receiving benefits.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, individuals didn\u2019t collect until they were 65 years of age and the average life span was 62 years.\u00a0 Social Security couldn\u2019t have been healthier.<\/p>\n
What looked like endless solvency in 1935 is somewhat precarious seventy-five years later in 2010.\u00a0 Now the ratio of workers to beneficiaries is three to one; a drop of 91%.<\/p>\n
Each of us is, to one degree or another, both a producer and a consumer.\u00a0 But we\u2019re not all equal in that regard.\u00a0 An infant may produce joy for others, but nothing to wear or eat.\u00a0 A senior citizen confined to a nursing home may bring gratitude to a son or daughter, but will never provide another meal.<\/p>\n
A farmer in the middle of Iowa may grow enough food to feed 1,000 people; a physician may provide primary care for a similar number.\u00a0 What they give society is far greater than what they consume.<\/p>\n
As with a family, if a society is to function well there needs to be a sufficient number of producers to provide necessities for themselves as well as everyone else who is not a producer.\u00a0 The status of each individual as a producer and\/or consumer is dynamic; it changes every day.\u00a0 In order to live we must consume; we only produce when we\u2019re capable of doing so and inclined to do so.<\/p>\n
Obvious times when we consume but don\u2019t produce include infancy and childhood, old age, infirmity, injury, and times when we want to work but are not employed.\u00a0 For a society to be viable, the producers have to crank out everything they need to keep themselves going, plus what is necessary for the aforementioned groups who are not producing.<\/p>\n
A key component to a healthy economy is to have a high enough percentage of the population producing goods and services that the people in the country need.\u00a0 This is not as easy as it may sound; we will continue exploring its dynamics in future posts.<\/p>\n
Images by Annie Nieman<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s so obvious when it\u2019s personalized. It\u2019s dinner-time for the family. Let\u2019s say that you have five mouths to feed, but as you check the cupboard you see that you only have food for three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,45],"tags":[269,270],"yoast_head":"\n
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