Economic Issues for the 21st Century.
Will I be able to afford a home of my own?.
Will my children or I live as well or better that my parents?.
These are but a few of the questions we all ask ourselves daily. The answers to these depend on how well the United States economy faces the challenge's of providing jobs, increasing income, and solving the multitude of social problems that we are faced on a daily basis, problems like poverty, soaring medical costs, and the decay of our environment. We could talk for days on the "problems that face us and our economy. However I would like to focus on what I think is the top 10.
1. How should we use our resources and capabilities?.
What should we produce, and how should we produce it? This is one of the all time favorite questions and probably one of the most fundamental in all of economics. Why? Because much of economics deals with understanding how people choose to use their resources and analyses the consequences of their choices.
2. Will the standards of living in the United States continue to improve?.
When income per person grows, people can afford more and better goods and services. All of this is in turn tied together, the growth in income per person depends on growth in production per person. Any person's income depends on the value of that person's service. When the economy is growing, it in turn generates better jobs for the growing population. .
However for this to happen several other items must come in to place, they include investment in education, training, new production facilitates, and equipment influences the development of new technologies and contributes to rising output per worker. The greater the growth of production per person in the United States, the greater the growth in income per person. As income per person increase's, so do our living standards.
3. Do we save enough of our income?.
When we save, we forgo the opportunity to use our income to consume goods and services.