Burlington High School
Burlington,
Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
What Economy Means to Our
World
By: Eldon
Nicholson
12th Grade
All nations depend very much on what they produce to help their economy in some way; some more than others. The definition of economy is- Careful, thrifty management of resources, such as money, materials, or labor: learned to practice economy in making out the household budget. In most countries the economy is run by the central government; they keep an eye on the positive things and what will benefit the country.
When studying various nations, such as Australia, Bahamas, Egypt, and Zimbabwe, one can see that economy is vital for any great or struggling country to exist. Australia is ranked tenth on the free column and is located below Indonesia. The Bahamas is ranked eighth on the most free column and is off the coast of Florida. Egypt is ranked 32 on most unfree and is located in Africa. These are the nations that are very high in the tourism businesses.
Australia- They are ranked tenth on the free column. Australia is located in the southern hemisphere of the world. They have a very wide range of mixed economy. They are ranked third in the United Nations (UN) for their human development. There economy has been doing very well since their recession in 1990. With Australia being very rich in natural resources such as grains, wool, and minerals including various metals, coal, and natural gas, that makes them a major exporter in agricultural goods. Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating, commenced the modernization of the Australian economy by floating the Australian dollar in 1983. Many raw materials including resources postulated to exist but yet to be discovered are still mostly unexploited.
Bahamas- the Bahamas are ranked eighth on the most free column. Their economy is highly dependent on tourism and offshore banking. They have done very good with the opening of new hotels. One of the bigger things that have slowed them down is the attacks on September 11; it held back a lot of the growth of the area because they rely on tourists. The cut down of planes flying at that time didn’t get them much businesses. However many international businesses left the Bahamas because of 9/11. Also, in a nut shell the Bahamas will never survive without all the traveling of tourists. Many merchants found it profitable to advertise in Bahamas.
Egypt- Egypt is ranked 32 on most unfree column. Right off the bat, Egypt is in debt like us but they are in it because of their participation in the Gulf War. Egypt depends a lot on its farming; one-third of Egyptian labor is engaged directly in farming. Pressures have since eased, however, with the continued oil price recovery has caused an increase in gas exports through there. Almost all of its farming is in 25,000 km² (6 million acres). Egypt produces cotton, rice, wheat, corn, sugarcane, sugar beets, onions, and beans as their main crops. We provide a lot to them such as wheat, corn and soybean to their economy. They are our largest buyer of our wheat out of every one.
Zimbabwe- is ranked ninth on the repressed column. The economy has been going very bad due to poor management and political turmoil. Maintenance of unrealistic price controls and exchange rates has led to a sharp drop in investor confidence. As of February of 2004, their national debt has ceased. The UN has put a hold on World Food Program due to insufficient donations from the world community. Zimbabwe Industrial production growth rate of 7.8% as of 2004. they have many paved roads and railways to get to their industries. Their railways take all of their goods through central Africa. Zimbabwe has experienced severe foreign exchange in recent years, exacerbated by the difference between the official rate and the black market rate.
After conducting all of my research of all of the nations, I have found that in some places the economy is the most important thing to them. I chose these nations because I wanted to research places that had a high tourist rate. I wanted to see how much they depended on them over what they produce, and, really, they do, but I was really impressed about how much they can do. Also, the government has a lot of control over it all, and that might be good or bad for some places. Without the ability to export and import to other countries, it would be extremely hard for these countries to modernize and advance with the fast pace of the world.
Answers To Questions Prompted By The Required Reading
Statement Q1- Be the Devil's Advocate and counter Benjamin Franklin's that "No nation was ever ruined by trade."
Trade has changed the
world so much that to a point that we could not survive with out it. But there
is a bad side to trade, and that could be the black market, and that some
countries do not have the ability to have trade.
Q2- Name
five countries whose ranking surprised you.
Czech Republic, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Chad, China
Q3- Write one sentence each to explain why you chose the countries you did in Q2.
Czech Republic- Is on the mostly free, for a long time they had no government and I would think that they would be more on the unfree.
Germany- Is on the mostly free, I thought with there democracy that they would really be higher on the free side of things
United Arab Emirates- Is on the mostly free, with them being Arab I thought that with there women’s rights and things like that they would be on more on the unfree
Kuwait- Is on mostly free,
China- Is on mostly unfree, I thought I would be on Repressed because at first it was an Empire and then it was Communist.
Q4- The USA was not
ranked first in any of the years exhibited online in the Annual Report nor in
the 2005 Index. List the twelve countries that ranked higher on the Index and
the countries that out ranked the USA in the eight Annual Reports.
Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom,
Denmark, Iceland, Australia, Chile, Switzerland
Q5- The Index uses 50 variables in 10 categories. The Report shows 21 variables in 5 categories and lists 24 sub-variables in its online charts.
As a class we looked at ten categories of the index. We came to the conclusion that there was not enough information to answer the question.