Hong Kong and Venezuela (Graphics not availalbe) Hong Kong has built economic strength from an impoverished economic infrastructure, since the 1950's, at the same time as Venezuela's economic health has declined despite its relatively strong economic structure. Figure 1 shows that in 1950, Hong Kong's income per person was approximately half of Venezuela. During that period, Hong Kong came under tremendous economic and social pressure due to an arrival of immigrants from China and a lack of natural resources to support growth. In the interim, Venezuela was resource-rich and had a relatively stable population. Comparisons in the 1990s showed Venezuela's income per person was much lower than 1950 in real terms while Hong Kong's was noticeably greater http://www.hku.hk/hkcer/articles/v57/walker While Venezuela's economic decline may be attributed to its high population growth negatively impacting economic growth, it can be proved that Hong Kong also experienced tremendous population growth over the past few decades (Figure 2). In addition, Hong Kong lacked the natural resources to support its population growth and resorted to importing all its basic needs to support the economy. The variation in economic performance can be attributed to the differential economic freedom between the two countries. Figure 3 shows that during the 1970s and through the 1990s, Hong Kong continued to achieve higher levels of economic freedom than Venezuela. More importantly, economic freedom in Venezuela deteriorated during the same period. By 1997, Hong Kong had over 50% more economic freedom than Venezuela (Figure 4). However, such comparisons are not rare when viewing global economies as stories of economic asymmetries abound around the globe. http://www.hku.hk/hkcer/articles/v57/walker. Although some economists believe economic freedom cannot be measured, physicist Enrico Fermi pointed various comparisons. What Fermi emphasizes is that when we make a comparison, we make measurements. While the concept of economic freedom remains difficult to measure, continued efforts are made to accurately gauge comparisons by refining measurement methodology. http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/ Measuring economic freedom consists of three main elements: The right to engage in voluntary acts of trade and exchange, without interference by government or others via force or fraud; The ability to access an impartial judiciary or the enforcement of property rights; The right of citizens to retain a majority of the income they earn. An Economic Freedom Index has been designed to identify various factors that make a country economically free, by using a compendium of 23 freedom factors based on objective data or independent surveys. It is a ranking of 123 countries according to the extent to which they are free.
Foner focuses, specifically, on how the definition of liberty has been molded over time. He describes how other factors played a role in the change of liberty using three interrelated themes. The first theme, as he describes it, covers the dimensions or meanings of freedom. The dimensions include “political freedom, or the right to participate in public affairs… civil liberties, or rights that individuals can assert against authority…[and] moral or ‘Christian’ ideal of freedom,” the freedom to act morally or ethically good (Foner xvii). It also includes personal freedom or being able to make individual choices free from coercion, and “economic freedom…[which covers how] the kinds of economic relations constitute freedom for… [individual’s working lives]” (Foner xviii). All these dimensions are looked at individually as they play a role in reshaping the definition of freedom or liberty.
According to the Collins Dictionary, “freedom” is defined as “the state of being allowed to do what you want to do”(“freedom”). The definition of freedom is simple, but make yourself free is not easy. Concerning about some common cases which will take away your freedom, such as a time-cost high education attainment. In this essay, I shall persuade that everyone should try his or her best to insist on pursuing freedom. For the individual, it appears that only if you have your personal freedom, can you have a dream; for a country, it seems that only if the country is free, can the country develop; for mankind, it looks like that only if people has their own pursuit of freedom, can their thoughts evolve.
The commercial activity has been, over the centuries, linked to human activity, due to the need to obtain satisfactory. The evolution of trade throughout history presents issues of immense importance to understand the current configuration of trade, However, for the purposes of this research we will be observing what is free trade so we can understand and interpret every point that we will be talking about in this investigation. Free Trade is an economic concept, referring to the sale of products between countries, duty-free and any form of trade barriers. Free trade involves the elimination of artificial barriers (government regulations) to trade between individuals and companies from different countries.
China has a list of problems while maintaining one fifth of the world’s population. It covers around the same geographic area as the United States, but has twice the amount of problems, along with five times the amount of people. They have not had a lucrative past, and their future does not either. In order to fix such problems, the Chinese government has taken miniscule actions to further aid their country (Riley, China’s Population).
...g taken is in the public interest. This would create “policy space” and therefore allow governments to regulate, making the trade system more legitimate.
INTRODUCTION : a brief overview of the current situation regarding the security issue in the Pacific region
Freedom is one of the most central and certainly most emotive issues in political philosophy. It has been discussed since the times of ancient Greece, and is still as controversial and divisive a topic as ever. This question deals with two separate questions concerning freedom: Firstly, why we consider freedom necessary, and secondly, what exactly is meant by freedom. Clearly, the answer to the second part will greatly affect the answer to the first, but it shall be seen that it is a very challenging task to arrive at a definition of freedom. It is possible, however, to make this job easier by not strictly defining freedom, and using an examination into the desirability of freedom to help form this definition. This will be done below.
Hugo Chavez was a powerful and positive force in addressing social issues, however, his singular focus on social issues at the expense of other matters of the country left the Venezuelan economy in tatters. In 1998, 50.4% of the Venezuelan population was living below the poverty line, where as in 2006 the numbers dropped to 36.3% (Chavez leaves). Although he aggressively confronted the issue of poverty in Venezuela, many other problems were worsened. Some Chavez critics say he used the state oil company like a piggy bank for projects: funding homes, and healthcare while neglecting oil infrastructure and production. Without growth in the oil ind...
From the 1970s, there has been a wave of liberalization in China, which was introduced by Deng Xiaoping. This is one of the key reasons to the rise of China to be one of the economic giants in the world. In the last 25 years of the century, the Chinese economy has had massive economic growth, which has been 9.5 percent on a yearly basis. This has been of great significance of the country since it quadrupled the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country thus leading to saving of 400 million of their citizens from the threats of poverty. In the late 1970s, China was ranked twentieth in terms of trade volumes in the whole world as well as being predicted to be the world’s top nation concerning trading activities (Kaplan, 53). This further predicted the country to record the highest GDP growth in the whole world.
Today, more than ever, there is great debate over politics and which economic system works the best. How needs and wants should be allocated, and who should do the allocating, is one of the most highly debated topics in our current society. Be it communist dictators defending a command economy, free market conservatives defending a market economy, or European liberals defending socialism, everyone has an opinion. While all systems have flaws and merits, it must be decided which system is the best for all citizens. When looking at both the financial well being of all citizens, it is clear that market economies fall short on ensuring that the basic needs of all citizens are met. If one looks at liberty and individual freedom, it is evident that command economies tend to oppress their citizens. Therefore, socialism, which allows for basic needs to be met and personal freedoms to be upheld, is the best economic system for all of a country’s citizens.
Freedom is often spoken of in what can be referred to as a loose sense of the word. One country has more freedom than another; a twenty-one year old has more freedom than a fifteen year old. What exactly does this word mean? For different people it may mean different things, but there has to be an equilibrium that can be reached in order to determine the meaning of freedom itself. In one form, freedom can mean that a person has "exemption from an obligation."* If only the root (free) is looked at, it can be interpreted that one is "not under the control or power of another."*
In the race to be the best, China is clearly outperforming the United States. China has strong economic fundamentals¬ such as “a high savings rate, huge labor pool, and powerful work ethic” (Rachman, Gideon. "Think Again: American Decline). Their economy has grown an astonishing 9-10% over the past thirty years; almost double of what it used to be decades ago. China is also the “world’s greatest manufacturer and its greatest market” (Rachman). The continuing growth of China's economy is a source of concern for not only the U.S. but surrounding nations as well. One could argue that the U.S. need not worry about China’s growth because of the spread of globalization and that western ideologies would influence China to turn to democracy. Yet China has still managed to “incorporate censorship and one party rule with continuing economic success” (Rachman) and remains a communist country. Hypothetically, even if China does resort to a democratic state, this does not gua...
The term `freedom' is often associated with the notion of living free of restraint and having an unfettered liberty to engage in rational actions with a sense that that our actions will not be controlled or interfered with. Given the above definition of freedom and the principles of positive and negative freedom, this essay shall seek to demonstrate that while they do not experience freedom fully, the proles are more free than Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four. This essay shall also discuss the reasons why we consider freedom to be important with a particular focus on our assumptions of human nature and its components.
Several decades ago I used to enjoy an occasional lunch in with the late Professor G. Warren Nutter, a distinguished economist who taught at the University of Virginia. Professor Nutter had considerable expertise in comparative economic systems, particularly that of the former Soviet Union. While he had a deep understanding of economic theory, he always stressed that markets do not operate within a vacuum and we gain a greater understanding of human behavior if we paid attention to the role of institutions and other non-market forces.
An increase in human population can influence our economy. Some of the factors that are affected are unemployment, poverty and the restriction of economic expansion. When the population increases, the cost of health, education, and other areas of urban growth are affected. Unempl...