Rising Food Price

      Rising the food rice is one of the factors that can affect the Quality Of Life.From this issue,I think this is not a good idea for the government to rise the price of food such as sugar,rice and flour to subsidies the poor.Moreover,in economic aspects,there are some issues that relate for Quality of Life.Food prices have been rising for a while. In some countries this has resulted in food riots and in the case of Haiti where food prices increased by 50-100%, the Prime Minister was forced out of office. Elsewhere people have been killed, and many more injured. While media reports have been concentrating on the immediate causes, the deeper issues and causes have not been discussed as much.

     ” The food crisis appeared to explode overnight, reinforcing fears that there are just too many people in the world. But according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone-at least 1.5 times current demand. In fact, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Population is not outstripping food supply. “We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,” says World Hunger Program’s executive director Josette Sheeran, “There is food on the shelves but people are priced out of the market.”

Eric Holt-Giménez and Loren Peabody, From Food Rebellions to Food Sovereignty, Institute for Food and Development Policy, May 16, 2008

To understand why people go hungry you must stop thinking about food as something farmers grow for others to eat, and begin thinking about it as something companies produce for other people to buy.

• Food is a commodity….
• Much of the best agricultural land in the world is used to grow commodities such as cotton, sisal, tea, tobacco, sugar cane, and cocoa, items which are non-food products or are marginally nutritious, but for which there is a large market.
• Millions of acres of potentially productive farmland is used to pasture cattle, an extremely inefficient use of land, water and energy, but one for which there is a market in wealthy countries.

The problem, of course, is that people who don’t have enough money to buy food, simply don’t count in the food equation.

• In other words, if you don’t have the money to buy food, no one is going to grow it for you.
• Put yet another way, you would not expect The Gap to manufacture clothes, Adidas to manufacture sneakers, or IBM to provide computers for those people earning RM1.00 a day or less; likewise, you would not expect ADM (“Supermarket to the World”) to produce food for them.

What this means is that ending hunger requires doing away with poverty, or, at the very least, ensuring that people have enough money or the means to acquire it, to buy, and hence create a market demand for food.

– Richard H. Robbins, Readings On Poverty,Hunger,and Economic Development

ECONOMIC ASPECTS – Oil Prices and ‘Folks Economics’

        Nowadays we knew that our country having  a crisis.It is not just for our country but all over the world.This crisis can affect the Quality of Life and there are a lot of  differences between the poor and rich family…Today the crisis involve the price of petrol ang food price…The oil and petrol price can affect Quality of Life…

        As price for gasoline increase and motorist-voters grow more angry,government is  considering numerous counterproductive policies.They pointed out that the price increase is due to the normal functioning of supply and demand in a situation where demand has increased, and that allowing the full functioning of the market will lead to increased supplies and other beneficial effects.Moreover, consumers and voters do not understand this issue and the reaction of politicians is in response to pressures from voters.

       Gasoline prices peak every few years and voters are always irate. A standard response is to have the Federal Trade Commission investigate possibilities of collusion; after a few years of study by its Bureau of Economics, the FTC will announce that there was no wrongdoing. Additionally, Congress will subpoena industry executives to hearings where they will be castigated for high prices and high earnings. And the media will dutifully document the public’s anger at “Big Oil.”Why do we have the same reaction from consumer-voters each time? To understand this reaction, it is necessary to go beyond simple economics and to consider the origin and nature of beliefs about economics-what has been called “folk economics.”

       This requires consideration of the environment in which humans evolved and in which our intuitions about economics were formed.Our instincts about economic issues were formed in the long period our ancestors spent as hunter-gathers. Humans have existed as humans for 50,000-100,000 years and our prehuman ancestors were around for millions of years before that. We have spent only about 10,000 years in settled communities. This is too short a time for much of an effect on our evolved preferences, so at some level we still have the instincts of hunter-gatherers. As Hayek has said, “Man’s instincts were not made for the kinds of surroundings …in which he now lives.”

QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS????

 

Descriptions of the 12 Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators

 

• Education Indicator summarizes the quantity, quality and distribution of education in the U.S. defined as life-long learning and contributes to the broader dialogue on who learns what, where, when, and how throughout the life cycle.
• Employment Indicator describes the structure of employment in the U.S. as developed by the government and amended by private research efforts and helps clarify basic questions as to what constitutes “employment” and “unemployment” and what it means when figures fluctuate over time.
• Energy Indicator describes how much and how efficiently energy is consumed in the U.S. and provides feedback to the public on what can be done to reduce the environmental impact of energy consumption.
• Environment Indicator presents detailed information on the health of our environment with a special emphasis on the production-consumption process. A research focus on water and air quality offers data of primary interest to the general public.
• Health Indicator initiates a discussion on what constitutes “health” and examines the overall state of health of the people in America by age, race and gender.
• Human Rights Indicator examines the degree to which the Bill of Rights is protecting U.S. citizens and the level of citizen participation in the electoral process.
• Income Indicator focuses on changes in the standard of living as reflected in monetary measures of family income. The indicator examines and explains trends in the level and distribution of family income and wealth along with stagnant and unequal wage growth over the past 25 years.
• Infrastructure Indicator explains the importance of the physical infrastructure to our economy and provides an example of how to supplement our national accounts with an improved asset account to monitor our physical stock.
• National Security Indicator explains the process our nation takes to achieve a state of national military security beginning with the President’s National Security Strategy through the Congressional Budget Process. This includes both a diplomatic strategy and a military strategy, all of which are affected by public opinion and the perceived threat to security.
• Public Safety Indicator examines how effectively our society promotes private and public safety when faced with complex interrelationships between personal decisions, public actions, risks, and hazards in the environment that result in deaths from injuries.
• Re-creation Indicator provides a novel approach to identifying the myriad ways that Americans chose to re-create the self, to be revitalized in body and mind, and to reestablish social contacts through leisure and/or recreational activities. 
• Shelter Indicator explores the type of housing Americans have access to, the level of affordability of that housing, and how housing in turn affects broader social outcomes.

 

 

 

This is the Calvert -Henderson Quality Of Life Indicators book  which can give me some knowledge about the indicators for quality of life…..:)

QUALITY OF LIFE

What is “Quality of Life”(QOL)? What do you understand about Quality Of Life? What parameters can be used to measure QOL? QOL is increasingly refered to in evaluating urban and rural areas, and in several other situations. Some definitions, models and more …I think QOL is a very important for us to maintain our living standard…These are some definitions about Quality of Life..

The best way of approaching quality of life measurement is to measure the extent to which people’s ‘happiness requirements’ are met – ie those requirements which are a necessary (although not sufficient) condition of anyone’s happiness – those ‘without which no member of the human race can be happy.’

– McCall, S.: 1975, ‘Quality of Life’, Social Indicators Research 2, pp 229-248

WHAT IS QOL? QOL may be defined as subjective well-being. Recognising the subjectivity of QOL is a key to understanding this construct. QOL reflects the difference, the gap, between the hopes and expectations of a person and their present experience. Human adaptation is such that life expectations are usually adjusted so as to lie within the realm of what the individual perceives to be possible. This enables people who have difficult life circumstances to maintain a reasonable QOL.

– Janssen Quality-of-life Studies

Quality of Life is tied to perception of ‘meaning’. The quest for meaning is central to the human condition, and we are brought in touch with a sense of meaning when we reflect on that which we have created, loved, believed in or left as a legacy.

– Frankl VE. ‘Man’s search for meaning.’ New York: Pocket Books, 1963

In quality of life research one often distinguishes between the subjective and objective quality of life. Subjective quality of life is about feeling good and being satisfied with things in general. Objective quality of life is about fulfilling the societal and cultural demands for material wealth, social status and physical well-being.

– Quality-of-Life Research Center, Denmark

The approach to the measurement of the quality of life derives from the position that there are a number of domains of living. Each domain contributes to one’s overall assessment of the quality of life. The domains include family and friends, work, neighborhood (shelter), community, health, education, and spiritual.

 – The University of Oklahoma School of Social Work

    

  Full of sadness,poverty and sympathy…do  you want your next generation to be like this forever??