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What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System?

What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System
Discussion – Overall, our results clearly indicate that “sickest first” is the prioritization principle that should be considered when encountering scarce medical resources in all three scenarios. In general, there was an overall concordance between participants from the five different groups.

  1. Throughout history, physicians have been faced with the difficult decision of prioritizing patients amid scarcity of essential medical resources.
  2. Currently, physicians are forced to decide on the allocation of intensive care unit beds and ventilators in overwhelmed facilities dealing with SARS-CoV-2 infection ( 18, 40 ).

In countries where the economy is poor, this scenario tends to recur often ( 41, 42 ). We carefully chose to discuss three particular scarce resources. The first scenario, organ donation for transplantation, was chosen as a universal dilemma; there will always be less organs available than there are patients on the waiting lists for the foreseeable future.

  1. In Jordan and other countries in the region, this is a particularly scarce resource, not only due to limitations in facilities and trained personnel, but also because there is still concern regarding organ donation ( 43 ).
  2. The second scenario addresses the shortage of hospital beds during a flu epidemic.

This is analogous to the current situation in light of the COVID-19 pandemic ( 44 ), which has resulted in a plethora of publications and discussions on this particular issue ( 15 – 18, 25 ). The third scenario aimed to address the limitation to the availability of expensive novel therapeutics to cancer patients, including targeted therapies and immunotherapy.

The costs of the novel drugs are exhausting the medical sector in countries with limited resources, further widening the gap between cancer patients worldwide. Other examples of resources that could become at some point scarce are ventilators, medical staff, and vaccines ( 45 ). There are nine common ethical principles, and a multitude of varying opinions on how to rank them according to priority ( 14, 45 ).

It would be a huge relief to decision-makers, however, if there was a clear consensus regarding how to allocate scarce medical resources. The criteria for patient selection and the allocation of resources should be transparent, yet a clear-cut approach to the development of such guidelines might not be easily attained.

  • The trend across various studies regarding the allocation of organs to those on waiting lists is to prioritize maximizing benefit while attempting to achieve equity ( 46, 47 ).
  • In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many articles aimed to set guidelines regarding the rationing of scarce healthcare resources during this crisis ( 40 ).

The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is a measure of the years of life remaining for a patient following a particular treatment or intervention. By including both the quality and the quantity of life lived, QALY became a favored tool in healthcare priority settings ( 48 ).

Patients with the lowest cost per QALY are usually prioritized in scarce medical resource allocation, therefore increasing health benefit and social welfare ( 49 ). One popular study argues that the value of maximizing benefits is the most fundamental in prioritizing patients, including saving the most lives as well as saving the most life-years—thus maximize prognosis ( 15 ).

However, QALY and health-benefit maximization are so often criticized for having the potential to be “ageist” because life expectancy is part of QALY calculation. Elderly, with a shorter life expectancy will be given the lowest cost per QALY and are therefore the least prioritized ( 50 ).

Another way of prioritization is explored by Golan et al study ( 51 ), which demonstrated a conjoint analysis method (also known as discrete choice experiments) which aimed to derive weights for a set of criteria related primarily to “benefits from technologies.” Weights for criteria were measured by an internet-based software as respondents were asked 40 questions about choosing between two hypothetical technologies which were defined in terms of just two criteria, whereby one of the technologies had a higher performance rating on one criterion and a lower rating on the other criterion than the other technology.

So when answering, respondents had to make a tradeoff and a choice. The advantage authors saw in this method relative to alternative scaling methods used in our survey, was that choice is natural and people, knowingly or unknowingly, experience similar situations daily.

Our study results showed that among the three scenarios, “the-sickest” was the most important priority principle, where in this study the most important criterion was “lives-saved and statistical lives” with similar weight to “quality-of-life gains” and “life-prolongation benefits,” all of which were related to the principle of “need,” defined as the extent to which a technology is expected to achieve any of the ultimate health goals of saving and prolonging life and or improving health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) is yet another frequently used method in literature to make decisions for prioritizing alternatives that are ranked based on a variety of criteria ( 52, 53 ). In a pilot study conducted in New Zeeland ( 54 ), the authors conducted a discrete choice experiment.

The survey was conducted using 1000 Minds software ( 55 ), which asks participants to choose between hypothetical patients who could be treated by the healthcare technologies. It used the potentially all pairwise rankings of all possible alternatives (PAPRIKA) method ( 56 ), which identifies all pairs of hypothetical patients defined on two criteria at a time that involve a trade-off.

Each participant was asked to rank pairs of patients and eliminated pairs that can be identified by transitivity. For example, if a participant prioritizes patient A over patient B, and then patient B over patient C, then patient A is prioritized over patient C by transitivity and the software will not ask the participant to rank the third pair of patients.

At the end, six benefit-related criteria were created. An ongoing question is who gets to decide these guidelines? In other words, who gets to decide who lives? ( 57 ) Many people may intuitively say that this burden falls in the hands of physicians; while others believe that all members of society should be involved ( 58, 59 ).

We decided to explore the opinions of five groups, with the goal of determining the collective-group opinions and comparing the results to explore any significant differences. We included lay people, since their values might diverge with those of physicians ( 59 ).

Our findings clearly indicate that there are no major differences in opinion regarding the allocation of scarce resources in the three scenarios. All groups in our study considered the “sickest-first” principle as the most important allocation principle in the 3 hypothetical scenarios, while “monetary contribution” and “reciprocity” were found to be the least important.

This is similar to the study by Krütli et al. ( 19 ), in which the most important allocation priorities for lay people were “sickest-first” and “waiting-list,” whereas “lottery,” “monetary contribution” and “reciprocity” received the lowest rank and were considered unfair.

Physicians were more likely to choose “prognosis,” “combined criteria,” and “youngest first” in all 3 hypothetical scenarios but were less likely to choose “waiting-list” and “sickest-first” except in the allocation of joint replacement surgery. An ethicist’s perception on how scarce medical resources should be allocated might provide a reasonable source of prioritization.

In two studies conducted by Persad et al. ( 14 ) and Emanuel et al. ( 15 ), ethicists prioritized maximizing the total benefit which includes “saving more lives” and “life-years saved” or prognosis. All other principles were used to facilitate decision making when two patients have an equal prognoses.

  • They considered “sickest-first” and “waiting list” as morally unacceptable.
  • In Jordan, the ethicist’s role is still emerging.
  • However, similar to other countries in the region, religion scholars play a major role in contemplating issues of everyday life and are viewed by many to hold the most ethical and just decisions based on the creed.

For example, during the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the Jordanian government recommended the closure of mosques and churches as part of their social-distancing measures. This unfavorable decision was frowned upon by a large number of the lay people who refused to comply until Muslim and Christian scholars alike publicly stated their support of the decision as it represents what is best for society ( 60 ).

  • We do not presume our findings are the solution to the aforementioned ethical dilemmas, albeit we believe that empirical research into these attitudes can be useful in many ways.
  • By showing which beliefs are most adopted by the public, and which are commonly regarded as frank, physicians can make their informed decisions when faced with scenarios of limited resources.

Persad wrote “even though popularity does not constitute correctness, the unpopularity of a normative position can justify placing it under scrutiny.” ( 45 ). We have attempted to address participants’ concerns, comments, and other ideas that could have evaded inclusion among the nine ethical principles.

  1. The “social-value” of individuals was presented as an additional ethical principle that was not previously included.
  2. This is defined as the presence of social- and financial-liability on the patients, such as children, elderly parents, or siblings, so that his/ her loss cannot be compensated.
  3. In the absence of well-developed national security system in countries like Jordan to support dependent individuals, especially elderly parents and young offspring, those individuals might find themselves in jeopardy if their primary caregiver is lost.

Interestingly, voice messages were sent from some of participants to the corresponding author on the overwhelming feelings they experienced while completing the survey. They found it “morally draining” once they imagined themselves in a position to take decisions to prioritize the scarce resources or as patients awaiting the decision to be made by others on whether or not they will be prioritized (Personal communication)

What resources are scarce in the United States?

A customer wearing a protective mask loads lumber at a Home Depot store in Pleasanton, California, Feb.22, 2021. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images The U.S. economy is trying to restart its engine after tumbling into its deepest recession in generations, but a variety of supply chain constraints are threatening the country’s rebound.

  1. The country faces major shortages in everything from labor to semiconductors, lumber and packaging materials.
  2. Not even swimming pools can be counted on this summer with the U.S.
  3. Running low on chlorine.
  4. The scarcity left and right is not only preventing the economy from reaching its full potential, but it’s also raising fears of higher inflation as companies are forced to hike prices amid the low supply.

People swim in a pool at a country club in Bloomfield Hills Township, Michigan, U.S., on Monday, June 8, 2020. Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty Images “These shortages, both labor and non-labor, will affect the speed under which the economy recovers,” Barclays head of U.S. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System The U.S. labor force participation rate remains well below pre-pandemic levels as many Americans have yet to go back to work. This is partly due to generous unemployment benefits and childcare duty. Meanwhile, manufacturers are struggling to catch up with a jolt in demand amid supply crunches in components and raw materials.

  • This has stalled the rebound across broad swaths of the economy from housing to services, tech, autos and leisure.
  • This is going to be a longer process coming out than when it went in,” Gapen said.
  • Like the global economy is recovering at an uneven pace, it’s likely that the U.S.
  • Economy is going to do the same.

There are some kinks to still work out in the system.”

What resources are scarce in the United Kingdom healthcare system?

United Kingdom: health system review 2022 Four separate health care systems are responsible for delivering health services Since devolution in the late 1990s, the respective governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been responsible for organising and delivering health care services.

United Kingdom residents enjoy access to a National Health Services (NHS) based on clinical need, and not ability to pay. In contrast, free access to social care services is means-tested, with different eligibility criteria across the nations of the United Kingdom. There are shortages of doctors, nurses and health care infrastructure The United Kingdom has relatively lower levels of both doctors and nurses, as well as lower levels of hospital beds and of diagnostic equipment, than most other high-income countries.

These shortages have left the country with little spare capacity and vulnerable to acute shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, they have led to growing waiting lists for elective care, with over 6 million people in England alone on a waiting list in 2022.

  • Health care financing provides high levels of protection against the financial consequences of ill health Historically, health spending in the United Kingdom has gone through cycles of sustained growth and austerity.
  • Nevertheless, total health expenditure has increased in the last decade, reaching just over 10% of GDP in 2019.

The proportion of public funding for health is high and has remained relatively unchanged over the last two decades, at around 80% of total health spending. Consequently, UK citizens enjoy high levels of protection against the financial consequences of ill health and minimal out-of-pocket payments.

Reforms are targeting greater integration of care and cross-sectoral partnerships that improve the health and well-being of local populations Several barriers persist across the four nations to facilitate meaningful integration between health care services, such as unlinked health information technology systems, duplication of governance arrangements and a lack of strategic planning.

Northern Ireland is the only United Kingdom constituent country where the NHS and social care are fully organisationally integrated, although efforts to promote such integration with cross-sectoral partnerships in England, Scotland and Wales have accelerated in recent years.

What are the scarce resources today?

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Learn more about the subscription offers. While the global population doubled in the second half of the 20th century, food grain production tripled and energy consumption quadrupled. A new research report by Bank of America, which is not yet publicly available, has pinpointed the 10 biggest areas where resource scarcity is set to affect global markets over the next few decades.

What are USA Top 3 resources?

Oil, Coal, and Gas.

Why is the UK healthcare system better than the US?

Comparative twin study: Access to healthcare services in the NHS and the American private insurance system What the NHS will ultimately look like under Conservative party leadership has yet to be determined. But the potential impact of American private healthcare interests remains part of the discussion.

There continues to be ongoing conversation around the strong interest the American health industry has in the UK market. During his visit earlier in the year, US President Donald Trump again raised the issue of opening the National Health Service (NHS) to the American private health insurance market.

This revives ongoing debates about the benefits of universal health coverage systems like the NHS compared to the benefits of America’s largely private, insurance-driven model. This is of particular concern because while Americans are assured that they receive the world’s best healthcare, review of health outcomes show Americans’ health often fares comparatively poorly to other high-income countries, despite the US spending significantly more.

Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that the US healthcare system can bankrupt even well insured individuals. However, there is little in the literature to reflect comparative experiences of those using the two systems. That’s where we come in. Our experiences are highly idiosyncratic, of course—but we are identical twins, both having been treated for breast cancer within the past five years.

Nora, a London-based university professor, received her care through the NHS; Nancy, a US government employee (with what is considered in the US an excellent employer insurance plan), was treated in the US. We both received treatment at well-regarded university teaching hospitals.

Here’s our experience : Medical history Moving to the UK from the US in 2008 aged 55, Nora enrolled in the NHS, with the understanding that if needed, for-profit, private healthcare was available. This was not necessary. Assigned to a local GP, in an initial check-up, Nora reported a medical history that included a strong family history of breast cancer.

This initiated a referral to a genetic counsellor and the local hospital’s breast clinic, where she received annual mammograms starting in 2009. In 2012, a routine mammography identified a lump and she was called back for a needle biopsy. Identification of cancer led to two lumpectomies (two days in hospital per lumpectomy) however there was difficulty in identifying margins of the lesion and after consultations with her surgeon and surgical team, Nora elected to have a double mastectomy.

  • This was undertaken in 2014, during a six day hospital stay.
  • Nora took six weeks off work, (and had the option to stay out longer), her time off covered by her employer.
  • She continues to have routine follow-up including anti-cancer medication, annual check-ups, and bi-annual bone density screenings.
  • Current status: In remission.

US based Nancy works in Washington, DC, but retains an apartment in her hometown of New York City. In part, this is because prior to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, (widely known as Obamacare) a previous bout of breast cancer in her early 40s meant she had a “pre-existing condition.” She was therefore ineligible for healthcare coverage in many American states.

Since New York was one of the states that did not exclude Nancy from coverage, she retained it as her primary residence despite working hundreds of miles away. In other words, access to health insurance has been a factor in determining her job/career options since 1994. Joining the Federal Government in 2007, Nancy enrolled in one of several pre-selected private health insurance plans where the employer pays 60% of the premium and employees are responsible for the 40% “matching payment.” Employee payments are automatically deducted from bi-weekly paychecks.

Plans vary, but most also include an “out-of-pocket deductible” of several hundred to several thousand dollars per year—costs that must be paid by the employee before insurance “kicks in.” Nancy’s plan permitted her to retain her New York-based healthcare providers, including her long-time oncologist.

In late 2015, after 20 years in remission, Nancy’s annual mammography detected a lesion in one breast. Over a four month period, Nancy underwent several MRIs, two biopsies, and an outpatient lumpectomy, followed by a month-long course of radiation. To minimize time off work, with the permission of her New York based oncologist, she moved her post surgical radiation care to a Washington, DC hospital near her office.

This necessitated her personally identifying and establishing relationships with a second medical team, coordinating a transfer of her medical records, and familiarizing herself with a new medical facility. In the end, Nancy took only two weeks off, in part by scheduling “crack-of-dawn” radiation appointments so she could still report for a full day of work.

She continues to have regular check-ups. Current status: In remission. Accessing the systems General taxation and mandatory salary deductions pay for the NHS, which supports not only healthcare, but also some dental care, some social services, and public health initiatives. All treatment is free at point of delivery.

For Nora this ranged from her initial genetic counselling to her most recent annual check-up. No bills were sent or presented to her at any point. Because Nora was over age 60, all medications also were, and continue to be, free. (Under age 60, England’s NHS now charges £9.00—US $ 11.75—for any medical prescription).

In the US, although Nancy was “fully covered” by her employer’s insurance plan, she was still responsible for 40% of the annual insurance company’s enrolment premium—$3,500 per year. Other expenses were covered on a complicated, opaque formula arrived at through negotiations between her healthcare providers and insurance company.

Significantly different from the NHS plan, under the US private healthcare system, Nancy is largely responsible for sorting out all payments at point of delivery. Some procedures and physician visits were fully covered; others were covered at varying percentages of the total cost; and occasionally, were disallowed.

In theory, the highest amount Nancy was responsible for should have totalled no more than $5,000 “annual out-of-pocket maximum deducible.” Since her diagnosis and treatment extended over two calendar years (December-March), she should have paid no more than $10,000 towards uncovered charges. In the end, however, she paid more than $14,000 over and above the substantial amount already paid by her insurance company and her annual $3500 premium.

Nancy, a single woman with no partner to assist her, found that in addition to facing a life-threatening disease, the financial hardships she encountered, even as a fully covered patient, and the stress created by the ongoing need to manage, negotiate, and often correct bills from doctors, hospitals, lab visits and insurance company was incredibly taxing.

Some providers refused to deal with insurance companies, only accepting direct payments: i.e. they insisted that she pay them “up front” and then submit their bill to her insurance company for reimbursement. For example, her surgeon, to whom she was referred by her oncologist, refused to deal with insurance companies.

His office quoted her a price of “between $7,000 to $10,000” for a lumpectomy, although when she expressed concern about affording this, the office secretary assured her that his final bill “would probably be less.” After numerous phone calls—and obtaining the mandatory “pre-approval” from her insurance company, Nancy had the operation as an outpatient.

  • This was apparently done to keep costs down for her insurance company—no explanation was offered as to why this was an outpatient rather than inpatient procedure.
  • Following the operation, the surgeon’s office “worked with her on billing” and ultimately, only charged $6,900.
  • Her insurance company sent her $3,900 with which to pay the surgeon, leaving her to pay the $3,000 balance.

(For mysterious reasons, the insurance company also decided that only $1,302 of her $3,000 payment qualified towards fulfilling her annual $5,000 “out-of-pocket maximum.”) Fortunately, she had enough personal savings to pay this bill without obtaining a loan.

  • Billing and payment issues continued throughout treatment.
  • Would the insurance company cover the $4,600 oncologist-ordered Oncotype test to determine if chemotherapy was needed? Maybe, maybe not.
  • While she waited several weeks for their ruling, she was required to submit an application to the California-based lab for “patient assistance” that included an intrusive questionnaire examining her private finances to see if she was eligible for their subsidized rate.

(She was finally approved for the subsidy and her insurance company did cover the test.) Many bills were only partially covered, leaving her responsible for tracking what had been paid by insurance, what she was responsible for, and how much of her payment the insurance company would apply to its enigmatic “out-of-pocket annual maximum.” For some procedures, 100% of her payment was applied towards the maximum, but for others, the applied amount was 80% or less.

  • She had no idea why.
  • Sometimes, she was able to “get a deal” from the hospitals’ billing departments by calling and paying her portion of an outstanding bill in full with her credit card.
  • However, this only worked if she called and personally negotiated with diverse billing departments (blood lab, surgical, radiology, etc.).

Having surgery at one hospital and radiation at another meant dealing with billing departments at both. It also increased the number of mistakes. For example, halfway through radiation, she received a bill for nearly $40,000 from the second hospital because their billing department had erred in submitting her insurance information and unilaterally decided she was uninsured.

This, too, was ultimately resolved in Nancy’s favour, but caused her weeks of worry waiting for the billing department to correct its error. Nancy’s previous experience with cancer treatment in the 1990s made her aware of the need to keep meticulous records on payments to health providers and insurance companies.

She initially hoped that technological improvements over the past two decades would improve her experience. It did incrementally: this time it only took six months of focused attention after the end of treatment to sort out her finances rather than the two years needed to resolve bills from her previous bout with cancer.

However, she continued to receive new, unanticipated bills for months: for example, an unexpected bill from her December 2015 surgery only arrived in May 2016. Discussion Obviously, this is an idiosyncratic comparison, but on behalf of both of us, we can say the following: cancer is always a daunting medical diagnosis.

To the list of life and death questions that any cancer patient reflects on, there are other issues—family, work, future—that all who face cancer must consider. Nora was able to confront many of these issues without worrying about a mounting pile of bills and ongoing monetary negotiations with her healthcare providers.

Nancy’s primary attention was focused on managing the complex financial issues surrounding her illness. While many US insurance companies and politicians loudly proclaim that national insurance systems such as the NHS “do not work,” in our experience, this is far from true. There are undoubtedly many problems with the NHS and the system itself is currently under severe strain.

But in the UK, access to healthcare is considered a right—not a privilege—and 64.6 million UK residents receive healthcare free at the point of delivery every year. There are other issues involved in a universal healthcare system that receive less attention.

For example, in the UK, people, young and old, change jobs without fear of losing healthcare for themselves or their families. But for millions of Americans, health insurance is provided by their employer. Should they, their partner or children need care—cancer, diabetes, a diagnosis of autism—the condition may be covered only so long as they stay in their current job.

Prior to the Affordable Care Act, such people were often locked in a job for years—even decades—because they could not afford to lose their current insurance and a new employer’s insurance would not cover their pre-existing conditions. Obamacare allows millions with pre-existing conditions coverage for the first time, but not all those with pre-existing conditions enrol and coverage differs by state.

Furthermore the Trump administration has clearly stated they seek to end the entire programme. Another concern in the US is that, even for those with excellent insurance, most practices accept only some but rarely all, insurance plans. Patients must “shop around” and often travel far distances, to find a healthcare provider that will accept their specific insurance plan.

This barrier to healthcare will likely increase if Obamacare is taken out of the picture. In the US, even those with excellent insurance plans, like Nancy, still struggle under a system that needs serious review; and those who cannot afford health insurance (or enough health insurance), go without or delay seeking care, sometimes with life-threatening consequences.

Health insurance companies can decide what they choose to cover, and as in Nancy’s case, negotiate with doctors and hospitals to establish what percentage of medical costs they will cover and what will be covered by patients—even fully insured patients. Ultimately, the issue is not just about healthcare or about money.

At its heart, we argue, this is a human rights issue and a social justice concern. It is a question of what type of society we want to be. In the UK, a national system of healthcare, paid for by all citizens through taxes, provides a universal safety net.

  1. The US has settled for a complicated mix of private insurance and government subsidized programmes, often managed by private companies.
  2. The result is not just whether one has or does not have insurance.
  3. In the US, even for those with excellent insurance like Nancy, the issue also is the amount of time, energy and frustration a person or a family faces in navigating a labyrinthine and often unforgiving for-profit system.
See also:  What Is Data Science In Healthcare?

One more reflection Nancy incurred an additional set of health expenses following surgery, during the months she spent negotiating her health care bills. Her previously unremarkable blood pressure skyrocketed. An additional round of doctors’ appointments, medicines, and bills (with inevitable co-payments) were needed to keep her blood pressure in check.

  • Nora had no blood pressure problems, but then, she did not face piles of bills and was not involved in dozens of phone calls arguing with insurance companies and hospital billing offices.
  • Her only additional expense was that, because food in her hospital was adequate but not outstanding, her husband paid £6.95 for a ready meal from Marks & Spencer’s the night before discharge.

Her taxi ride home was covered by the NHS. Nora Ellen Groce is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Health Care at University College London. She holds a PhD in Anthropology and works on issues related to global health and international development, with particular expertise in global disability research Nancy Groce holds a PhD in American Studies and has worked public sector jobs in the arts, culture and humanities throughout her career.

Competing interests : None declared Acknowledgement : We thank the following people for review of this manuscript: Lawrence C Kaplan, MD; Ellie Cole, MSc; Helena Fahie, MSc. References:

The Guardian. Nov 3, 2019. Opinion: The Observer view on the risk the Tory party poses to the NHS. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/03/the-observer-view-on-the-risk-the-tory-party-poses-to-the-nhs Fortune. There’s One Subject in the UK that’s as Toxic as Brexit: Trump just waded into it.

June 4, 2019. http://fortune.com/2019/06/04/trump-brexit-nhs/ Sawyer B, McDermott D.2019. Petersen-Kaiser Health System Tracker. http://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/#item-start Papanicolas I; Woskie L; Jha A.2018. Health Care Spending in the United States and Other High-Income Countries.

JAMA.2018;319(10):1024-1039. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.1150 Dobkin C, Finkelstein A, Kluendo R, Notowidigo M; Myth and Measurement: The Case of Medical Bankruptcies. New England Journal of Medicine. March 22: 378 (12):1076-1078. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5865642/ US Government.2010.

  • Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
  • Accessed March 27, 2019.
  • The Guardian.2018.
  • Doctors at Breaking Point in Underfunded NHS.
  • Letter to the Editor.
  • Https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/01/doctors-at-breaking-point-in-underfunded-nhs; NHS.
  • NSH England – About the NHS England.
  • Https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/ Accessed: April 20, 2019.

: Comparative twin study: Access to healthcare services in the NHS and the American private insurance system

Is US healthcare better than UK?

Notes – This is the second in a series of articles in which we asked experts in UK and US healthcare systems to identify opportunities for learning between the two countries Further explanation of some of the learning opportunities is on bmj.com Contributors and sources: This article draws on CH’s experience as a health policy researcher and, between 2000 and 2004, as a senior policy maker in the Department of Health in London.

It incorporates ideas discussed in various meetings that have brought together researchers and policy makers from the United States and the United Kingdom and the author’s research comparing aspects of health systems performance in the two countries. It has benefited from comments made on earlier drafts by colleagues in both countries.

Competing interests: CH is working with the NHS Modernisation Agency in seeking to adapt aspects of Kaiser Permanente’s approach to the management of care in the NHS in England.

What are the 4 types of scarce resources?

What are the Factors of Production The four factors of production are land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship In economics, factors of production are the resources people use to produce goods and services; they are the building blocks of the economy.

  • Economists divide the factors of production into four categories: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship,
  • This episode of our explains the four factors of production with examples.
  • Listen to the audio or read more in the transcript below.
  • To provide students with online questions following the episode, register your class through the,

Factors of production are resources that are the building blocks of the economy; they are what people use to produce goods and services. Economists divide the factors of production into four categories: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Land includes any natural resource used to produce goods and services; anything that comes from the land.

  • Some common land or natural resources are water, oil, copper, natural gas, coal, and forests.
  • Land resources are the raw materials in the production process.
  • These resources can be renewable, such as forests, or nonrenewable such as oil or natural gas.
  • Labor is the effort that people contribute to the production of goods and services.

Labor resources include the work done by the waiter who brings your food at a local restaurant as well as the engineer who designed the bus that transports you to school. It includes an artist’s creation of a painting as well as the work of the pilot flying the airplane overhead.

  1. If you have ever been paid for a job, you have contributed labor resources to the production of goods or services.
  2. Think of capital as the machinery, tools and buildings humans use to produce goods and services.
  3. Some common examples of capital include hammers, forklifts, conveyer belts, computers, and delivery vans.

Capital differs based on the worker and the type of work being done. For example, a doctor may use a stethoscope and an examination room to provide medical services. Your teacher may use textbooks, desks, and a whiteboard to produce education services.

  • An entrepreneur is a person who combines the other factors of production – land, labor, and capital – to earn a profit.
  • The most successful entrepreneurs are innovators who find new ways to produce goods and services or who develop new goods and services to bring to market.
  • Without the entrepreneur combining land, labor, and capital in new ways, many of the innovations we see around us would not exist.

Entrepreneurs are a vital engine of economic growth helping to build some of the largest firms in the world as well as some of the small businesses in your neighborhood. Entrepreneurs thrive in economies where they have the freedom to start businesses and buy resources freely.

  • The factors of production are resources that are the building blocks of the economy; they are what people use to produce goods and services.
  • Economists divide the factors of production into four categories: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.
  • The first factor of production is land, but this includes any natural resource used to produce goods and services.

This includes not just land, but anything that comes from the land. Some common land or natural resources are water, oil, copper, natural gas, coal, and forests. Land resources are the raw materials in the production process. These resources can be renewable, such as forests, or nonrenewable such as oil or natural gas.

  • The income that resource owners earn in return for land resources is called rent.
  • The second factor of production is labor.
  • Labor is the effort that people contribute to the production of goods and services.
  • Labor resources include the work done by the waiter who brings your food at a local restaurant as well as the engineer who designed the bus that transports you to school.

It includes an artist’s creation of a painting as well as the work of the pilot flying the airplane overhead. If you have ever been paid for a job, you have contributed labor resources to the production of goods or services. The income earned by labor resources is called wages and is the largest source of income for most people.

The third factor of production is capital. Think of capital as the machinery, tools and buildings humans use to produce goods and services. Some common examples of capital include hammers, forklifts, conveyer belts, computers, and delivery vans. Capital differs based on the worker and the type of work being done.

For example, a doctor may use a stethoscope and an examination room to provide medical services. Your teacher may use textbooks, desks, and a whiteboard to produce education services. The income earned by owners of capital resources is interest. The fourth factor of production is entrepreneurship.

  1. An entrepreneur is a person who combines the other factors of production – land, labor, and capital – to earn a profit.
  2. The most successful entrepreneurs are innovators who find new ways to produce goods and services or who develop new goods and services to bring to market.
  3. Without the entrepreneur combining land, labor, and capital in new ways, many of the innovations we see around us would not exist.

Think of the entrepreneurship of Henry Ford or Bill Gates. Entrepreneurs are a vital engine of economic growth helping to build some of the largest firms in the world as well as some of the small businesses in your neighborhood. Entrepreneurs thrive in economies where they have the freedom to start businesses and buy resources freely.

  • The payment to entrepreneurship is profit.
  • You will notice that I did not include money as a factor of production.
  • You might ask, isn’t money a type of capital? Money is not capital as economists define capital because it is not a productive resource.
  • While money can be used to buy capital, it is the capital good (things such as machinery and tools) that is used to produce goods and services.

When was the last time you saw a carpenter pounding a nail with a five dollar bill or a warehouse foreman lifting a pallet with a 20 dollar bill? Money merely facilitates trade, but it is not in itself a productive resource. Remember, goods and services are scarce because the factors of production used to produce them are scarce.

In case you have forgotten, scarcity is described as limited quantities of resources to meet unlimited wants. Consider a pair of denim blue jeans. The denim is made of cotton, grown on the land. The land and water used to grow the cotton is limited and could have been used to grow a variety of different crops.

The workers who cut and sewed the denim in the factory are limited labor resources who could have been producing other goods or services in the economy. The machines and the factory used to produce the jeans are limited capital resources that could have been used to produce other goods.

Coal. land Forklift. capital Factory. capital Oil. land Michael Dell. entrepreneur

It’s time to wrap things up, but before we go, always remember that the four factors of production – land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship – are scarce resources that form the building blocks of the economy.

What is the most valuable scarce resource?

Mostly because of farming, water is increasingly scarce. Managing it better could help – What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System PEOPLE kill each other over diamonds; countries go to war over oil. But the world’s most expensive commodities are worth nothing in the absence of water. Fresh water is essential for life, with no substitute. Although mostly unpriced, it is the most valuable stuff in the world.

Nature has decreed that the supply of water is fixed. Meanwhile demand rises inexorably as the world’s population increases and enriches itself. Homes, factories and offices are sucking up ever more. But it is the planet’s growing need for food (and the water involved in producing crops and meat) that matters most.

Farming accounts for 70% of withdrawals. Our special report this week looks at the increasingly visible consequences of the rising demand for water. Few of the world’s great rivers that run through grain-growing areas now reach the sea all the year round or, if they do, they do so as a trickle.

  • Less obvious, though even more serious, are the withdrawals from underground aquifers, which are hidden from sight but big enough to produce changes in the Earth’s gravitational field that can be monitored by NASA’s satellites in space.
  • Water tables are now falling in many parts of the world, including America, India and China.

So far the world has been spared a true water war, though the belligerency in Darfur comes close to being one, and competition for water can sometimes bring rivals together as well as drive them apart. But since over 60% of the world’s population lives in a river basin shared by two or more countries, the scope for squabbles is plain.

Even if acute water shortages were to become widespread in just one country—India, say, or China—they could lead to mass migration and fighting. Although the supply of water cannot be increased, mankind can use what there is better—in four ways. One is through the improvement of storage and delivery, by creating underground reservoirs, replacing leaking pipes, lining earth-bottomed canals, irrigating plants at their roots with just the right amount of water, and so on.

A second route focuses on making farming less thirsty—for instance by growing newly bred, perhaps genetically modified, crops that are drought-resistant or higher-yielding. A third way is to invest in technologies to take the salt out of sea water and thus increase supply of the fresh stuff.

  1. The fourth is of a different kind: unleash the market on water-users and let the price mechanism bring supply and demand into balance.
  2. And once water is properly priced, trade will encourage well-watered countries to make water-intensive goods, and arid ones to make those that are water-light.
  3. Solutions on tap All four approaches have a part to play in the solution, but none is likely to end the over-drawing of water at all quickly.

For instance, although crop yields may be improved by new technologies and even new breeds (especially following this week’s genome advance), no one has yet managed to produce plants that offer dramatically more crop per drop. Without such a breakthrough, growing more crops inevitably means losing more water, since each extra plant transpires water vapour into the atmosphere during photosynthesis.

Desalination looks more hopeful, since new technologies are being developed and prices are falling. But it is still expensive, especially in terms of energy use, which is why at present it provides only 0.4% of the world’s fresh water. It will undoubtedly add to the supply of drinking water, of the ultra-pure water required for some industrial processes, even of irrigation for high-value crops, especially if grown for export.

But it won’t solve most farmers’ water problems. Liquid assets As for the market, when it approaches water it meets all sorts of obstacles: water is difficult to move, difficult to measure, difficult to price and often difficult to charge for, since many people think it should be free.

Even in arid market economies where every drop is precious, the price of water seldom reflects scarcity. Trading in water rights may one day bring order to the 20m well-users in India, but not in time to feed the 1.4 billion Indian mouths expected by 2025. If that is to be done, it will be done largely by managing demand.

This is already beginning to happen in parts of both India and China, where farmers are learning how to measure the water they pump, how to use it to greatest effect and thus how to sustain aquifer levels. The urgent need now is to spread their principles and practices at home and to other countries.

Even if the world manages to limit depletion, many water-related problems will persist. About 1 billion people are still without access to a decent water supply, while others suffer from flooding, pollution and poor sanitation. Yet if man wants to solve these problems, he can. He has applied far more money and know-how to issues far less important than the shortage of water.

And if he does tackle them successfully, the big causes of human suffering—disease and poverty—will be automatically alleviated. Investing more thought and cash in the better use of the world’s most valuable commodity is surely worthwhile. This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The world’s most valuable stuff”

What are the most scarce materials?

Platinum Group Metals are: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. Rare Earth Elements are scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, and promethium.

What is the most scarce thing?

What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System Should we worry about natural resources running out? As Rachel Nuwer discovers, that’s the wrong way of looking at a far more complex problem. O Of all the world’s materials, which one will “run out” first? The more we consume as a society, the more we hear about how vital ores and minerals are dwindling, so it seems logical to assume that a few may be about to disappear.

Yet that may be entirely the wrong way of looking at the problem. According to natural resources experts, many of the materials we rely upon in modern life won’t “run out” at all. Unfortunately, the scenario they paint about what will happen instead in the near future is hardly rosy either. Some of our most cherished devices – smartphones, computers and medical equipment, for instance – rely on a rich list of elemental ingredients.

Mobile phones alone contain a whopping 60 to 64 elements. “Many of these metals are present in only minute amounts, a milligramme or less,” says Armin Reller, a chemist and the chair of resource strategy at Augsburg University in Germany. “But they are very important for the function of the device.” This includes things like copper, aluminum and iron, but also less well-known materials, like the “rare earth elements”, what the Japanese refer to as “the seeds of technology”. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System Tablets and smartphones rely on a class of materials called rare earth metals (Science Photo Library) The latter class of materials has come under particular scrutiny because they’re a vital ingredient in smartphones, hybrid cars, wind turbines, computers and more.

  • China – which produces around 90% of the world’s rare earth metals – claims that its mines might run dry in just 15-20 years,
  • Likewise, if demand continues for indium, some say it will be gone in about 10 years; platinum in 15 years; and silver in 20 years.
  • Looking farther into the future, other sources claim that things like aluminum might run dry in about 80 years,

Other studies indicate that rhodium, followed by gold, platinum and tellurium, are some of the rarest elements in terms of their percentage in the planet’s crust and their importance to society. As startling as these figures sound, however, the complete loss of silver, platinum, aluminum or any other mineral resource will likely never come to pass, according to Thomas Graedel, director of the Center for Industrial Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

We have never completely run out of a natural resource, he says, and we almost certainly never will. Supply and demand Thinking in terms of “running out” is not the right way to approach this problem. For starters, it’s impossible to prove a negative. Scientists could never definitively say “The world has no more silver reserves” without checking every last subterranean nook and cranny on the planet.

The more practical reason, however, is that by the time we reached the point that running out is even a consideration, the price tag for those last remnants would be prohibitively expensive, and manufacturers would not be able to turn a profit on any products made from them.

They already would have moved on to a substitute resource – even an inferior one. “As supply and demand change, prices change and people adapt what they need and how they use it,” says Lawrence Meinert, program coordinator of the US Geological Survey’s Mineral Resources Program. “This means that you can never consume everything because the price gets so high you stop using it.” In the 1980s, mining for cryolite – used in processing aluminum ore – stopped because remaining reserves were too small to justify the expense of mining.

We simply moved on to using a synthetic substitute. It’s not really possible to put a label on what the world’s rarest resource is, either. Instead of thinking in terms of how many tonnes of element X or mineral Y are left in the earth, Meinert says, rarity depends on how easy it is to get our hands on that resource, and also on the market’s demand for that commodity. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System We may need a replacement for indium, used in smartphones, in as little as 10 years (Science Photo Library) For starters, some resources such as indium – found in computer and smartphone display screens – are byproducts of other mining operations. Almost all of the world’s indium comes from zinc mines; there are no dedicated indium mines, because it occurs in such small amounts mining for it is impractical.

  1. So if demand for zinc declines – say, because car manufacturers switch from steel to aluminum bodies, as they have been doing recently – then this would have an impact on indium.
  2. Nature puts deposits where it feels like, without worrying about whether we have the energy or water handy to deal with it,” says Graedel.

In other cases, demand might surpass supply, even if there are dedicated mines for the material. Certain resources are sometimes referred to by the German term Gewürzmetall – ” spice metal – because, like a dash of cinnamon or saffron tying a dish’s flavour together, these materials compose only a small proportion of an electronic device’s makeup but are essential for that device to function.

  1. Palladium, which is used as a capacitor in cell phones, makes up just 0.015% of those devices’ composition, but the cell phone industry goes through about 15 tonnes of that rare metal each year.
  2. Given that palladium is also used by the automotive, jewellery, dental, health and electronics industries, eventually, competition could drive up prices, and supply could fall short.
See also:  How To Prevent Healthcare Worker Burnout?

Politics can come into play, too. Most of the rare-earth-metals supply comes from mines in China. Several years ago, China decided to cut down on its export of those elements. As a result, the price of rare earth metals – and the goods they are used to make – has increased,

  1. It’s not that the rest of the world does not have rare earth metals,” Meinert says.
  2. The US, for example, holds around 38% of the world’s deposits, but only one mine in southern California (which was closed for several years due to competition from China) is currently producing them.
  3. It takes a long time to put a mine into production,” Meinert says.

In addition to countries setting their own embargoes on exports, conflicts have an impact on resource availability. Fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could affect the world’s supply of coltan, for example, a metallic ore used to make capacitors.

  • No substitute So should we worry about dwindling resources? Historically, the argument that, if one element or another runs dry, the world will find alternatives has worked pretty well.
  • Unfortunately, however, in today’s increasingly complex world, good substitutes are hard to come by.
  • In a recent study, Graedel and his colleagues tried to identify the best substitutes for 62 metals.

Twelve of those metals, they found, had no substitute at all for their major uses, and none of the 62 they studied had a substitute available to cover all of their uses. “Because we chose what’s almost always the best from a long list of materials, performance is likely to decrease – computers will get slower, engines will be less efficient and so on – if we start making substitutions,” Graedel says. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System The majority of used electronics in the US is chucked in the bin instead of recycled (Science Photo Library) In the meantime, it would help if consumers found responsible ways of recycling their used electronics, In 2009, US citizens recycled just 25% of their used TVs and computers, while as little as 8% of mobile phones were recycled.

  • It’s really a tragedy that we spend all this time and effort getting gold and platinum and other things we use in our electronics, but then we use them once and don’t worry about what happens to them after that,” Graedel says.
  • Recycling won’t solve the problem, but it certainly would help.” If the world began recycling in full force and combined those efforts with new technologies for efficiently finding, extracting and sharing the resources we need, it could be possible that the materials integral to modern life will last for generations to come, Reller says.

“But that hope might be a little bit dream-like,” he admits. The balance of supply and demand does affect us, especially when it comes to the price and availability of the technology in our lives. So while no material is so scarce that it is about to disappear entirely – we should worry that many could soon become out of reach.

What are three things that are not scarce?

Sequence summary : This is a series of 18 articles on the most fundamental concepts of economics: scarcity, opportunity cost, marginalism, and self-interest. These are the atoms, molecules, cells, the core things you need to have a grip on to move on with the science, and, if all goes well, we will move on, but first it is absolutely vital to get a strong grasp of the fundamentals.

Though these are basic concepts, they are not easy to understand. If you want evidence of this, open a newspaper. Previous : Imagining Scarcity A familiar example of something scarce is ordering in a restaurant. There are so many enticing options, but you can only order one. You want more than what you can choose to have.

Whatever option you choose, you could have chosen another one, and that which you did not choose is now beyond your reach. Even if you come back and order that other choice the next day, it’s not the same day, you’re not quite the same you. All this means that your options are scarce.

Or say you’re packing to go hiking. You have only so much space in your pack. That means if you want to bring the flashlight, you won’t have room for those extra snack bars, not if you also want to fit in the spare batteries for the camera. You have to pick one and make a tradeoff – that is, your space is scarce.

(Maybe you could bring a bigger pack. But that would be more unwieldy, and with all the stuff in it, it will be heavier. So there’s your tradeoff – more stuff, or a more difficult hike?) And don’t forget, you need a tent. It rains pretty hard round these parts.

Do you want to spend more money on the super high-tech tent with the poly-something supercalifragilistic anti-water technology? Or do you want the cheaper one, even though there’s a chance you might get wet? Again, you have to make a choice, trading off one good for another because your money is scarce.

If only you had more money! If only you had more space! If only you could carry more weight! If only more restaurants would offer a tasting menu so you could sample everything and not torture you with the eternal mystery of what all these fascinating things actually are! All these things are scarce.

  • Now that we have some examples, we can pin down a more precise definition of what makes something scarce.
  • But first, I’m going to state very explicitly what does not make something scarce.
  • Space is not scarce just because you don’t have as much space in your pack as you want.
  • Strength is not scarce just because you don’t have as much strength as you would like.

Money is not scarce just because you don’t have as much money as you would like. Your options are not scarce just because you cannot order from a tasting menu. In other words, what makes something scarce is not that there is less of it than you want. Money, space, time, and energy are not scarce because you don’t have as much of them as you want.

That’s part of what creates scarcity, but it is not scarcity in and of itself. Think about trying to get that sand-sphere of your values to fit into the too-small hole. You have to remove some of the sand, and that sucks. But suppose that the sand is homogeneous, so removing one grain is the same as removing any other.

So you remove the sand necessary for the rest of the sphere to fit into the hole, and. Since the sphere is homogeneous, what’s the difference between having to remove some sand yourself and just having a sphere that’s small enough to fit into the hole? Whether you think of it as a too-big sphere or a too-small hole, the problem’s the same: you can only fit so much of the sphere into the hole, just like you could order only so many things in a restaurant or fit only so many things into your pack.

  1. You want more, but you can’t have more, and that’s not what makes it scarce.
  2. Something is scarce not when there is less of it than you want but when it has alternative uses,
  3. Your ordering choices in a restaurant are scarce not because you want to try everything and you can’t, but because whatever you order, you could have chosen some other thing.

What you do in that restaurant with your time, money, and the space in your stomach could have been some other thing, That means you have to think about which dishes you want to try the most and order those, forgoing the chance to try the other dishes.

The space in your pack is scarce not because more things won’t fit, but because you have to choose which things you’re going to pack. You have to think about what you want the most, knowing that any item you pack means you can’t pack something else. Your strength is scarce not because you can’t carry as heavy a pack as you would like but because you can choose to do alternative things with your strength, like having a faster or more pleasant hike.

The money you could spend on a tent is scarce not because you want more of it, but because you can choose to spend it on alternative things. It is the presence of alternatives that makes something scarce, and that’s why the homogenous sphere of sand is not scarce.

There are no choices to make, no alternative uses the sand can be put to; there’s no difference between choosing to remove one grain versus another. There is no difference between having to make the choice to remove sand versus just having less sand to begin with (disregarding the brief time and effort of brushing the sand away).

You want more sand. Every grain is one of your values. But it is only because each grain of sand is different, it is only because there is a meaningful sense in which you can choose which values to retain and which to sacrifice that there is scarcity, choice, and foregone opportunities, – the core elements of economics.

It all begins with a choice: this value, or that? This alternative, or that one? A mere lack of sand is insufficient. This is why I don’t take promises of a post-scarcity society very seriously. They seem to think in terms of leaps in production technology, as if the key to ending scarcity is producing lots and lots of stuff.

But scarcity is the presence of alternative uses, not the presence of want, and making lots of stuff does nothing to address the former per se, Picard, who can make as much tea as he wants in his replicator, must still make choices. Next : more on the relationship between cost and scarcity.

This is why I don’t take promises of a post-scarcity society very seriously. They seem to think in terms of leaps in production technology, as if the key to ending scarcity is producing lots and lots of stuff. Is this simply a matter of people using the word scarcity differently? When someone talks about a post-scarcity future, I doubt that they are thinking about a future without choice between alternatives, but indeed a future without unmet needs of one sort or another.

Indeed, such futures tend to have a bewildering amount of choice and alternative uses of time. Haven’t faintest idea what they really mean, frankly. Usually too fuzzy, vague; using technical terms in odd ways. “Post-scarcity” and “economics” or “economy” should occupy same sentence in only same way that “inorganic” and “biology” should.

  • Posit a world where sustenance, shelter, and well-being are magically provided – nobody actually needs to do anything to continue existing.
  • This would be an instance of what is colloquially, and perhaps to an economist incorrectly, termed a post-scarcity society.
  • I’m less certain about this phrasing, I’m not yet comfortable with the semantics of the economic definition of scarce, but one could try: An society where only time and some luxuries are (economically) scarce.

You don’t need to do anything to continue existing already. Someone will find you, put you in hospital. Your life will be sustained regardless of wishes. See, aren’t definitions tricky? Isn’t it nice that we’re spending 3 whole articles just nailing down the most basic concept? Concepts which are basic, but not easy? =) You should add a link to the previous post at the top, so people who come across this don’t get confused by the sand metaphor.

This will hopefully be addressed in later posts, but on its own, this reads like an attempt to legislate a definition of the word ‘scarcity’ without a sufficient justification for why we should use the word in that way. (It could also be an explanation of how ‘scarcity’ is used as a technical term in economics, but it is not obvious to me that the alternate uses/unsatiated desires distinction is relevant to what most economists spend their time on.

If this is your intention, could you elaborate and give evidence that economists do in fact use the term in this way?) Naively, it seems that if we have enough Star Trek replicators or whatever to satiate all human desires, then for all practical purposes scarcity has been eliminated, and insisting that it hasn’t really because things have alternative uses because some things still have alternative uses seems like playing unproductive word games.

Can you explain why thinking of scarcity in your terms is advantageous? Overall, this series has so far been quite fun to read. I look forward to more. Is everybody going to have their own replicators on a spaceship? If so, just how big are they going to be? And, if they are big enough to replicate an elephant.

then. it seems like it’s useful to think of the alternative uses of the space that all the large replicators and their produced items take up on a ship with limited space. So at no point do you ever truly get away from the benefit maximization problem.

  • Right now I have a bunch of bookcases filled with books.
  • In theory I could free-up a bunch of space by digitizing all my books.
  • But then I’d still have to figure out what to do with the free space.
  • Basically, it’s a continual process of freeing up resources for more valuable uses.
  • Being free to valuate the alternatives is integral to this process.

You can’t free-up resources for more valuable uses when individuals aren’t free to weigh and forego/sacrifice/give-up the less valuable alternatives. Some good reading material.

  • Simon–Ehrlich wager
  • Running Out of Everything
  • Economists and Scarcity

Those are entirely valid points, but they only show that human desires are harder to satiate than you might think, not that satiating them would be insufficient to eliminate scarcity. And in fact, that could not possibly be the case even granting economy’s definition of scarcity, because if you have no unmet desires, you do not need to make choices about what uses to put things to.

  • If once you digitize your books, you want nothing in life except to read all the books you can now store, you don’t need to put the shelf space to another use; you can just leave it empty.
  • Human desires are harder to satiate than I might think? Well.I think that human desire is insatiable.
  • Let’s juxtapose a couple wonderful passages.

We call contentment or satisfaction that state of a human being which does not and cannot result in any action. Acting man is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state.

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness. A man perfectly content with the state of his affairs would have no incentive to change things. He would have neither wishes nor desires; he would be perfectly happy. He would not act; he would simply live free from care. – Ludwig von Mises, Human Action,and.

If we now turn to consider the immediate self-interest of the consumer, we shall find that it is in perfect harmony with the general interest, i.e., with what the well-being of mankind requires. When the buyer goes to the market, he wants to find it abundantly supplied.

He wants the seasons to be propitious for all the crops; more and more wonderful inventions to bring a greater number of products and satisfactions within his reach; time and labor to be saved; distances to be wiped out; the spirit of peace and justice to permit lessening the burden of taxes; and tariff walls of every sort to fall.

In all these respects, the immediate self-interest of the consumer follows a line parallel to that of the public interest. He may extend his secret wishes to fantastic or absurd lengths; yet they will not cease to be in conformity with the interests of his fellow man.

He may wish that food and shelter, roof and hearth, education and morality, security and peace, strength and health, all be his without effort, without toil, and without limit, like the dust of the roads, the water of the stream, the air that surrounds us, and the sunlight that bathes us; and yet the realization of these wishes would in no way conflict with the good of society.

– Frédéric Bastiat, Abundance and Scarcity Human desire is limitless. The challenge is to figure out how to help people understand that we sabotage progress when we prevent each and every individual from having the freedom to prioritize their desires.

And prioritizing desires doesn’t mean making a list. it means sacrificing accordingly. This effectively communicates to others what’s really important to us. Without this essential information. how can other people make informed decisions about how to put society’s limited resources to more valuable uses? Right now we can’t choose where our taxes go.

Instead, we elect a small group of people to represent humanity’s powerful desires for a better world. The point of understanding concepts such as “scarcity” and “opportunity cost” is to effectively evaluate the efficacy of our current system. If it’s beneficial to block your valuations from the public sector.

Then why isn’t it beneficial to block your valuations from the private sector? Why do your unique private priorities matter but your unique public priorities do not? How can your freedom to sacrifice a fancy dinner for 10 books be more important than your freedom to sacrifice the drug war for cancer research? I’ve given this article a thumbs up.

Does this effectively communicate how much I value it? Does the number of thumbs up that this article has received effectively communicate how much we value it? Does it really matter how much everybody on this forum values this article? Does it really matter how much we’d be willing to sacrifice/forego/give-up for this article? The point that I’m trying to make is that these economic tools aren’t fancy paperweights.

Whether our institutions are the forums that we participate in. or the governments that we pay taxes to. these economic tools serve a fundamentally important purpose of helping us to better understand our institutions. In the absence of this better understanding it’s less likely that we’ll greatly improve our institutions.

No institution is perfect. and neither are the tools that we need to understand them. Evidence would be any textbook, I hope. Problems are when economists speak lazily to laypeople and students or when use “want” in particular way so that definition comes out to one presented here.

  • Indeed have used “use” in such a way, to some confusion, I see.
  • Definition presented here is, as far as I know, the universally agreed upon definition in economics.
  • No game, but need to understand how it differs from normal usage and common misconception.
  • Most economists, it is true, do not spend most their time on the most basic material.

Evidence would be any textbook, I hope. Definition presented here is, as far as I know, the universally agreed upon definition in economics. No game, but need to understand how it differs from normal usage and common misconception. This got me curious enough to haul out my old economics textbook, blow the dust off its top, and open it to page 2.

An inset box headed “Key term” defines “scarcity” as “a situation that arises when people have unlimited wants in the face of limited resources”. The main text says For any society in the world, the fundamental economic problem faced is that of scarcity, You might think that this is obvious for some societies in the less-developed world, where poverty and hunger are rife.

But it is also true for relatively prosperous economies such as those of Switzerland, the USA or the UK. It is true in the sense that all societies have finite resources, but people have unlimited wants, A big claim? Not really. There is no country in the world in which all wants can be met, and this is clearly true at the global level.

Talking about scarcity in this sense is not the same as talking about poverty, On the next page is a subsection headed “Scarcity and choice”. It begins The key issue that arises from the existence of scarcity is that it forces people to make choices. Each individual must choose which goods and services to consume.

In other words, everyone needs to prioritise the consumption of whatever commodities they need or would like to have, as they cannot satisfy all their wants. So I think your hope is in vain. My textbook defines scarcity as our unbounded desires outpacing our limited resources.

Which, if I read you correctly, is what you emphasize scarcity isn’t, You define scarcity instead as the existence of alternatives from which one must choose — which the textbook mentions as a consequence of scarcity, rather than scarcity itself. In the OP you say: A familiar example of something scarce is ordering in a restaurant.

There are so many enticing options, but you can only order one. You want more than what you can choose to have. Whatever option you choose, you could have chosen another one, and that which you did not choose is now beyond your reach. Even if you come back and order that other choice the next day, it’s not the same day, you’re not quite the same you.

All this means that your options are scarce. To say that having “so many enticing options” means that “your options are scarce” is exactly opposite of what people normally mean by “scarce”. And, per satt’s observation above, your definition of scarcity doesn’t match the textbook definition. IMO starting a sequence with a definition of a word that is radically different from its every-day use and from its accepted academic use is not a good thing; I suggest sticking with more commonly recognized word usage.

The more commonly accepted usage doesn’t work – it’s literally wrong for the purpose of the technical term; one might as well complain that in “everyday” usage speed and velocity are synonyms – and the textbook definition is too dense, defining technical words with other technical words, leading to the illusion of understanding when none exists, as some of the comments show.

But frankly, I just never expected that people would get so hung up over the definition of scarcity. I just took it for granted that the community of a site with such a fantastic series of articles as this wouldn’t argue about definitions rather than rolling with the concept being conveyed. If “scarcity” is a problem, then just substitute “tabtab” or whatever random string on your own; no need to wait for me to do it.

It’s even more surprising because this is a community based around articles like this one, Surely it’s obvious that determining the proper label for the concept being conveyed does not make you stronger, and the goal instead should be to learn the economics presented in the articles.

That there are things to learn is evidenced by the mistakes made in quite a few comments. For example, the most upvoted comment in this article describes the concept labeled scarcity erroneously, aside from the part of the description that came from my articles. I realize my articles are very basic (but not easy) and not particularly relevant or fun.

This article is riddled with errors, many of them quite egregious, and yet it seems to have been well-received, being topical and pretending to a shared understanding that is really a shared ignorance among the writer and all the commenters. It invites discussion, opinions, debate, and though it all may be based on illusion, those who see the phantasms will never know the difference.

So I am unimpressed by the self-awareness, curiosity, and ability-to-learn represented by many of the responses to my articles. That doesn’t mean my own presentation isn’t at fault, but as I said elsewhere, I have already gained most of the benefit from these articles. That which remains to be reaped is mostly you all’s.

That the modal response does not seem to be “How can I use these articles to become stronger?” is disappointing, albeit perfectly normal. Responding days after the fact to someone who’s deleted their account, but what the hell. The more commonly accepted usage doesn’t work – it’s literally wrong for the purpose of the technical term; one might as well complain that in “everyday” usage speed and velocity are synonyms I sympathize with this.

  1. But frankly, I just never expected that people would get so hung up over the definition of scarcity.
  2. I just took it for granted that the community of a site with such a fantastic series of articles as this wouldn’t argue about definitions rather than rolling with the concept being conveyed.
  3. I don’t sympathize with this.
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It’s a hypocritical bullshit move to spend 2,500 words baroquely belabouring your preferred meaning of “scarcity”, and to then affect surprise & disappointment about other people getting “hung up” about the word’s meaning. If “scarcity” is a problem, then just substitute “tabtab” or whatever random string on your own; no need to wait for me to do it.

But part of the point of the ” 37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong ” post you linked one sentence earlier is that words aren’t fungible like that, because they carry connotations (way 26), can be used in a needlessly odd and hard-to-understand fashion (way 20), start needless arguments (way 22), and so on! It’s even more surprising because this is a community based around articles like this one,

Surely it’s obvious that determining the proper label for the concept being conveyed does not make you stronger, and the goal instead should be to learn the economics presented in the articles. Sure it can make you stronger; it can help you avoid the failure modes listed in “37 Ways”.

  • And in the end there wasn’t much “economics presented in the articles” aside from the languid discussion of scarcity.
  • That the modal response does not seem to be “How can I use these articles to become stronger?” is disappointing, albeit perfectly normal.
  • This smells like a fully general counterargument one could use to brush off any criticism of one’s writing in a cool-sounding, world-weary way.18 articles!? Very cool! Now I see what you’re doing.

Tiny steps. Slowly building a solid foundation. So that maybe one day we’ll open the paper and the stories will accurately reflect a basic understanding of economics. That would certainly be progress. I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of the articles! At some point and at times I encounter people for which evolution is a boody battle of the surival of the fittest.

  1. However the true conception of “fit” also includes capability to cooperate most passionately.
  2. It seems to me that something similar here is happening with the word “scarce” where it is invented and explained in one connotation and then a more general technical definiton is used but the “other connotations” are largely ignored.

The reading of the article was a little jarring because I could easily come up with a system where there are restraurants that let you eat each and every kid of dish on the menu as much as you want. They are called buffets. Even if I were in a traditional restaurant I could order up all the foods.

But even if I ordered all of them I proably would not eat 24 meals in one sitting. My stomach is not infinite. I realise that this is also why getting banned from a buffet is way of making fun of someone being a big eater. Buffets work only if when people are given free reign to take as much food as they need they take only a finite amount instead of all of it.

There is a certain limit amount of food that if you take it you are a net negative to the retaurant as it it in their interest to not accept you as a customer. But if people take only a moderate amount we don’t need to track on person to person basis on who takes what what amount.

One person taking potatoes doesn’t make the other person unable to pick those. When a buffet takes market share from a portion serving restaurant it reduces scarcity. When the product is “one person eating” it makes no longer sense to talk about how much a portion of rice costs. When you pay for a buffet you have less options to choose from but this is the good kind of limitation, you are forced to take all of them instead some of them.

Now in a sense when there is portion serving restaurant and a buffet opens next to it, technically now there is more opportunities to use the same money to receive different products. So scarcity has increased. But this makes no f sense with the standard connotation of the word.

It would make even less sense that forcing the buffet to close down via community legistation would be in some sense improvement because scarctiy would have decreased especially if you could choose to have an equivalent meal from the buffet at the same price that a portion at the other restaurant would cost.

But if there is a price difference it might be that customers migth like the product difference more than the price difference (in either way). In that sense one of them might be outcompeteed “naturally”. When there is only one restaurant alive that means less products to choose for so scarcity is decreased.

If you happen to be one that would have preferred the other kind of restaurant the others have in effect chosen for you that you don’t get to make the choice on how you want the terms of your meal to go. So instead of having the optino of enjoying the kind of meal that you like you are driven back to all the other activities you coudl be doing instead of having a meal.

But it can be easy to think that the “fallback” activity is slightly less fun than having a meal woudl have been, so one can end up hoping that the situation woudl have been more scarse. It also seemst that scarcse and degenerate are close ot being synonyms.

This post strikes me as odd. The “insufficient quantity” definition matches both what I have seen in economics textbooks, and the common definition of the word. The fact that then choices must be made follows from this definition. If the standard conception follows from your definition, they are equivalent, and I would use the one that matches standard terminology.

If it doesn’t, I would say that makes the first preferable (as the relevant fact is derived from the definition). This is why I don’t take promises of a post-scarcity society very seriously. They seem to think in terms of leaps in production technology, as if the key to ending scarcity is producing lots and lots of stuff.

But scarcity is the presence of alternative uses, not the presence of want, and making lots of stuff does nothing to address the former per se. Picard, who can make as much tea as he wants in his replicator, must still make choices. This seems a little unfair to me. When we speak of a post-scarcity society, it is one where you do not have to make a choice between feeding yourself and feeding your children.

If you still have to make a choice between eating chocolate cake or eating ravioli, well. there’s a sense in which these choices are the same, but I think the way in which they’re different is more important. From the economic perspective. there’s absolutely no difference between.

  1. choosing between feeding or clothing your children
  2. choosing which bundle of genetic traits your children will have

The rules/laws of economics don’t change just because you change the variables. Then many societies throughout history have been post-scarcity.any semblance of civilization has passed such harsh subsistence long while back. Though these are basic concepts, they are not easy to understand.

  1. People are simply not exposed to it
  2. Simply reject some of their conclusions because they dislike them
  3. Often a lot of people peddle a form of very simplistic libertarianism online that is based on the micro 101 level (say mises.org) without any inkling of the post-Keynesian macro synthesis, IS/LM and so on. They squabble with the people who know serious macro, who laugh their butts off and make fun of the idiots assuming people who know serious macro somehow don’t know basic micro. However for the general public there is an unfortunate fallout: they think basic micro is worthless, look at how the serious guys are laughing at it! They are not laughing at basic micro, they are laughing at the idea that econ stops there. But this gives basic micro a bad name, kind of. It is the over-use and over-reliance on basic micro to make a political point is what gives it a bad name.

As for your point here, you are taking pos-scarcity too literally. Really it is based on marginalism. It is about satisfying the most basic wants that have the highest marginal disutility. It is about feeding the proles bread and circus and not having a significant social problem or unrest on your hand so basically you can focus on things like exploring the galaxy.

Is oil a scarce resource?

Oil is considered scarce when its supply falls short of a specified level of demand. If supply cannot meet demand at the prevailing price, prices must rise to encourage more supply and to ration demand. In this sense, oil scarcity is reflected in the market price.

What are the 5 most important natural resources?

Oil, coal, natural gas, metals, stone and sand are natural resources. Other natural resources are air, sunlight, soil and water. Animals, birds, fish and plants are natural resources as well. Natural resources are used to make food, fuel and raw materials for the production of goods.

Are there any resources that are not scarce?

What is economics? Economics is the study of how society allocates scarce resources and goods. Resources are the inputs that society uses to produce output, called goods, Resources include inputs such as labor, capital, and land. Goods include products such as food, clothing, and housing as well as services such as those provided by barbers, doctors, and police officers.

These resources and goods are considered scarce because of society’s tendency to demand more resources and goods than are available. While most resources and goods are scarce, some are not—for example, the air that we breathe. A resource or good that is not scarce, even when its price is zero, is called a free resource or good.

Economics, however, is mainly concerned with scarce resources and goods. It is the presence of scarcity that motivates the study of how society allocates resources and goods. One means by which society allocates scarce resources and goods is the market system.

What is America’s biggest resource?

  • Scope Ratings:
  • AA
  • Outlook: Stable
Foreign reserves $242.47 billion (December 2022) Main data source: CIA World Fact Book All values, unless otherwise stated, are in US dollars,

The United States is a highly developed mixed economy, It is the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP, and the second-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) behind China, It has the world’s seventh-highest per capita GDP (nominal) and the eighth-highest per capita GDP (PPP) as of 2022.

The U.S. accounted for 24.7% of the global economy in 2022 in nominal terms, and around 15.5% in PPP terms. The U.S. dollar is the currency of record most used in international transactions and is the world’s foremost reserve currency, backed by a large U.S. treasuries market, its role as the reference standard for the petrodollar system, and its linked eurodollar,

Several countries use it as their official currency and in others it is the de facto currency, The American economy is fueled by high productivity, transportation infrastructure, and extensive natural resources, Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states.

  1. In 2021, they had the highest median household income, The U.S.
  2. Has one of the world’s highest income inequalities among the developed countries,
  3. The largest U.S.
  4. Trading partners are Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, India, and Vietnam, The U.S.
  5. Is the world’s largest importer and second-largest exporter,

It has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA, Australia, South Korea, Israel, and several others that are in effect or under negotiation. By 1890, the United States had overtaken the British Empire as the world’s most productive economy.

It is the world’s largest producer of petroleum and natural gas, In 2016, it was the world’s largest trading country as well as its third-largest manufacturer, representing a fifth of the global manufacturing output, The U.S. not only has the largest internal market for goods, but also dominates the services trade.U.S.

total trade amounted to $4.2 trillion in 2018. Of the world’s 500 largest companies, 121 are headquartered in the U.S. The U.S. has the world’s highest number of billionaires, with a total wealth of $3.0 trillion. US commercial banks had $20 trillion in assets as of August 2020.U.S.

  • Global assets under management had more than $30 trillion in assets.
  • During the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S.
  • Economy suffered a significant decline.
  • The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act was passed by the US administration, and in the years that followed, the U.S.
  • Experienced the longest economic expansion on record by July 2019.

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are the world’s largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume, In 2014, the U.S. economy is ranked first in international ranking on venture capital and global research and development funding.

Consumer spending comprised 68% of the U.S. economy in 2018, while its labor share of income was 43% in 2017. The U.S. has the world’s largest consumer market, The nation’s labor market has attracted immigrants from all over the world and its net migration rate is among the highest in the world. The U.S.

is one of the top-performing economies in studies such as the Ease of Doing Business Index, the Global Competitiveness Report, and others.

What natural resources does the US not have?

Domestic Reserves – In general, the United States does not lack mineral resources, but not all resources will become reserves and not all reserves will lead to production. A common misconception is that the United States must import mineral commodities because no domestic resources exist.

  • In general, the United States does not lack mineral resources.
  • For example, it has resources of 43 mineral commodities with high NIR.
  • Reserves, on the other hand, are related to domestic production.
  • Of the 26 mineral commodities with reserves estimates, 19 are produced domestically.
  • Seven mineral commodities with domestic reserves lack domestic primary production: asbestos, chromium, graphite, rare earths, scandium, vanadium, and yttrium.

Domestic reserves data are not available for 12 mineral commodities: arsenic, barite, bismuth, cesium, gallium, germanium, indium, nepheline syenite, rubidium, thallium, thorium, and tungsten. Reserves estimates are not typically conducted for by-products and minor constituents of a mineral deposit.

Of the 12 mineral commodities for which reserves data are not available, eight are by-products that are not recovered domestically. The United States lacks domestic reserves of five commodities: manganese, niobium, strontium, tantalum, and tin. Reclassifying resources as reserves requires considerable investment and effort to conduct exploration and economic feasibility analysis.

Therefore, not all resources will become reserves, and not all reserves will lead to production. Reserves that may result in production include graphite projects under development in Alaska and Alabama and a niobium project under development in Nebraska.

What are the biggest resources in USA?

The U.S. has abundant supplies of coal, copper, lead, iron, natural gas, timber, bauxite, and uranium.18% of the land in the U.S. is arable land. The U.S. is a major exporter of technology, consumer goods, information systems, and foodstuffs.

Is water scarce in the US?

Figures suggest 2.2 million people in the United States are without running water and basic indoor plumbing ; more than 44 million people have inadequate water systems. Community-level solutions exist to address poor access to potable water but more funding and technology is needed for scale and sustainability.

What is the most scarcest resource?

What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System Should we worry about natural resources running out? As Rachel Nuwer discovers, that’s the wrong way of looking at a far more complex problem. O Of all the world’s materials, which one will “run out” first? The more we consume as a society, the more we hear about how vital ores and minerals are dwindling, so it seems logical to assume that a few may be about to disappear.

Yet that may be entirely the wrong way of looking at the problem. According to natural resources experts, many of the materials we rely upon in modern life won’t “run out” at all. Unfortunately, the scenario they paint about what will happen instead in the near future is hardly rosy either. Some of our most cherished devices – smartphones, computers and medical equipment, for instance – rely on a rich list of elemental ingredients.

Mobile phones alone contain a whopping 60 to 64 elements. “Many of these metals are present in only minute amounts, a milligramme or less,” says Armin Reller, a chemist and the chair of resource strategy at Augsburg University in Germany. “But they are very important for the function of the device.” This includes things like copper, aluminum and iron, but also less well-known materials, like the “rare earth elements”, what the Japanese refer to as “the seeds of technology”. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System Tablets and smartphones rely on a class of materials called rare earth metals (Science Photo Library) The latter class of materials has come under particular scrutiny because they’re a vital ingredient in smartphones, hybrid cars, wind turbines, computers and more.

China – which produces around 90% of the world’s rare earth metals – claims that its mines might run dry in just 15-20 years, Likewise, if demand continues for indium, some say it will be gone in about 10 years; platinum in 15 years; and silver in 20 years. Looking farther into the future, other sources claim that things like aluminum might run dry in about 80 years,

Other studies indicate that rhodium, followed by gold, platinum and tellurium, are some of the rarest elements in terms of their percentage in the planet’s crust and their importance to society. As startling as these figures sound, however, the complete loss of silver, platinum, aluminum or any other mineral resource will likely never come to pass, according to Thomas Graedel, director of the Center for Industrial Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

  • We have never completely run out of a natural resource, he says, and we almost certainly never will.
  • Supply and demand Thinking in terms of “running out” is not the right way to approach this problem.
  • For starters, it’s impossible to prove a negative.
  • Scientists could never definitively say “The world has no more silver reserves” without checking every last subterranean nook and cranny on the planet.

The more practical reason, however, is that by the time we reached the point that running out is even a consideration, the price tag for those last remnants would be prohibitively expensive, and manufacturers would not be able to turn a profit on any products made from them.

They already would have moved on to a substitute resource – even an inferior one. “As supply and demand change, prices change and people adapt what they need and how they use it,” says Lawrence Meinert, program coordinator of the US Geological Survey’s Mineral Resources Program. “This means that you can never consume everything because the price gets so high you stop using it.” In the 1980s, mining for cryolite – used in processing aluminum ore – stopped because remaining reserves were too small to justify the expense of mining.

We simply moved on to using a synthetic substitute. It’s not really possible to put a label on what the world’s rarest resource is, either. Instead of thinking in terms of how many tonnes of element X or mineral Y are left in the earth, Meinert says, rarity depends on how easy it is to get our hands on that resource, and also on the market’s demand for that commodity. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System We may need a replacement for indium, used in smartphones, in as little as 10 years (Science Photo Library) For starters, some resources such as indium – found in computer and smartphone display screens – are byproducts of other mining operations. Almost all of the world’s indium comes from zinc mines; there are no dedicated indium mines, because it occurs in such small amounts mining for it is impractical.

So if demand for zinc declines – say, because car manufacturers switch from steel to aluminum bodies, as they have been doing recently – then this would have an impact on indium. “Nature puts deposits where it feels like, without worrying about whether we have the energy or water handy to deal with it,” says Graedel.

In other cases, demand might surpass supply, even if there are dedicated mines for the material. Certain resources are sometimes referred to by the German term Gewürzmetall – ” spice metal – because, like a dash of cinnamon or saffron tying a dish’s flavour together, these materials compose only a small proportion of an electronic device’s makeup but are essential for that device to function.

  1. Palladium, which is used as a capacitor in cell phones, makes up just 0.015% of those devices’ composition, but the cell phone industry goes through about 15 tonnes of that rare metal each year.
  2. Given that palladium is also used by the automotive, jewellery, dental, health and electronics industries, eventually, competition could drive up prices, and supply could fall short.

Politics can come into play, too. Most of the rare-earth-metals supply comes from mines in China. Several years ago, China decided to cut down on its export of those elements. As a result, the price of rare earth metals – and the goods they are used to make – has increased,

It’s not that the rest of the world does not have rare earth metals,” Meinert says. The US, for example, holds around 38% of the world’s deposits, but only one mine in southern California (which was closed for several years due to competition from China) is currently producing them. “It takes a long time to put a mine into production,” Meinert says.

In addition to countries setting their own embargoes on exports, conflicts have an impact on resource availability. Fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could affect the world’s supply of coltan, for example, a metallic ore used to make capacitors.

No substitute So should we worry about dwindling resources? Historically, the argument that, if one element or another runs dry, the world will find alternatives has worked pretty well. Unfortunately, however, in today’s increasingly complex world, good substitutes are hard to come by. In a recent study, Graedel and his colleagues tried to identify the best substitutes for 62 metals.

Twelve of those metals, they found, had no substitute at all for their major uses, and none of the 62 they studied had a substitute available to cover all of their uses. “Because we chose what’s almost always the best from a long list of materials, performance is likely to decrease – computers will get slower, engines will be less efficient and so on – if we start making substitutions,” Graedel says. What Resources Are Scarce In The Us Healthcare System The majority of used electronics in the US is chucked in the bin instead of recycled (Science Photo Library) In the meantime, it would help if consumers found responsible ways of recycling their used electronics, In 2009, US citizens recycled just 25% of their used TVs and computers, while as little as 8% of mobile phones were recycled.

  • It’s really a tragedy that we spend all this time and effort getting gold and platinum and other things we use in our electronics, but then we use them once and don’t worry about what happens to them after that,” Graedel says.
  • Recycling won’t solve the problem, but it certainly would help.” If the world began recycling in full force and combined those efforts with new technologies for efficiently finding, extracting and sharing the resources we need, it could be possible that the materials integral to modern life will last for generations to come, Reller says.

“But that hope might be a little bit dream-like,” he admits. The balance of supply and demand does affect us, especially when it comes to the price and availability of the technology in our lives. So while no material is so scarce that it is about to disappear entirely – we should worry that many could soon become out of reach.

Does scarcity exist in a country like the United States?

Answer and Explanation: The correct answer is C ( in all countries in the world ). Scarcity is defined as an economic situation characterized by the limited availability of resources compared to limitless wants.

What is America’s most precious resource?

Water – Our Most Precious Resource.

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