Class Summary #8 for 9/19/11

Today in class, we discussed how much our world has improved since earlier time periods, specifically since the early 1900s.

Prof. Rizzo began class by summing up what we were going to be discussing . He said that "We're living much longer and healthier lives than ever before, and we're spending less time being sick and dying."

Here are some interesting facts Prof. Rizzo explained during his power point presentation in class:

1. There has been a 2% decline in each of the last 10 years in cancer diagnoses and the cancer mortality rate continues to decrease year by year.
• Prof. Rizzo also pointed out that "he loves cancer" because since new cancers are being discovered and people are getting it later in life, it means that we are living longer than ever before. The longer we live, the better chance there is of new diseases/sicknesses developing. Cancer is a prime example of that.
2. There is less of a risk for heart attacks today- because of ability to be saved from them from hospitals.
3. Obesity and diabetes are on the rise. This could have to do with the fact that people care less about their body because of the influx in medical technology. Therefore, people don't need to eat as healthy as they did a hundred years ago because there are simply not as many risks involved.
4. The average male height has risen nearly two inches since the Industrial Revolution.
5. Commonly cured diseases/illnesses from today, such as the Flu, Pnemonia, and diarrhea, were some of the most deadly 100 years ago and before that.

All of these facts bring up the quesitons: Do we care about this and why?

According to Prof. Rizzo, we do care about this. As he points out, the value of our health improvements are worth about $3 trillion dollars per year. The healthier we stay, the more wealthy we can become.

Prof. Rizzo also showed us a very fascinating graph, which showed how from 1962 to 2009, the greater income a person has (all over the world), a person will generally have a greater life expectancy.

It was also interesting to see how at the bottom of the graph were African countries, a continent that is generally poorer than other continents, and the top of the graph included countries such as the US, Japan, and China, which are all more wealthy countries.

Income has also dramatically increased since the past. In 1900, the per capita income was $7,000. Today, that value is at $45,000.

A person earning $45,000 in 1900 would be the equivalent of earning $350,000 today.

Because of our increase in income, we are able to work less to buy more things.

For example, a bike in 1895 cost approximately 260 hours of work, whereas, today, a bike would only cost around 7 hours of work.

We are also much wealthier today than ever before because of the fact that we don't need to pay for a lot of things that we had to before, such as an encyclopedia. We can just go on wikipedia for free online, and get ultimately the same result.

Another example of how we are working less and getting more: Many people are spending half of their full-time jobs doing leisurely activities such as Facebook. We are making more money now, and not nearly working as much as before when people had to tend to farms and work in factories.

One final thought Prof. Rizzo shared that I found very interesting was that prices of everything have not decreased since older times. 

Take, for example, the piper-cub airplane. It actually costs more for a piper-cub airplane today than it did 100 years ago. Why you might ask?

Back then, property and liability insurance was barely a part of business deals. Eventually, a ton of accidents began to occur and victims started suing the companies they bought the product (airplane) from. So, in some things, such as the piper-cub plane, there has been a price increase mostly because of insurance payments, which are payments that weren't really paid for earlier on.