Burlington High School
Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
Different Countries and Their Economic Lifestyles
By Jodie Clay
12th Grade
There is a lot of talk about what it means to be economically free. Well, countries all over the world are slowly becoming economically free. Some of the countries that are around the world these days are getting worse. There are countries that export all of their goods and then they have nothing else to keep their economy going on a daily business.
In some ways, different countries have different economic freedoms. At the same time they can also have the same economic freedoms. The United States, Austria, Mali, and Venezuela all have some of the same views but different values.
The United States is the most economically free country out of the four that I have already mentioned above. The United States is the 12th economically free country out of 17 countries, with Hong Kong being the first.
Austria is a mostly free country. It is the second out of 58 mostly economically free countries. Their money system is the Euro. Austrian farms are like the ones in West Europe; their production is relatively expensive.
Mali has a few very productive agricultural areas. For example, it is most productive along the banks of the Niger River between Bamako and Mopti. Mali’s system of money is the centime, which is a coin.
Venezuela is the third most repressed country out of 12 countries all together. Even though it produces products like maize and bananas, it is still not a very stable country.
The population of the United States is 291,049,000 million people. So the economy is growing while the population is growing. The United States makes 9.5 trillion dollars every year. The United States and Japan are the leading two countries that donate the least in economic aid.
The country of Austria has a small population. There are only about 8,184,691 people in their country. Their market economy is well developed, but along with that they have a high standard of living.
Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. They have 12,291,529 people in their country. There is not enough food to feed all of the people because most of the country is desert land or semi desserts. Only about ten percent of the population in Mali is nomadic.
The population of Venezuela is the second largest out of the four states. There are currently 25,375,281 people in Venezuela. Only five percent of the people in Venezuela live in the Southern part of the country. That is where most of the land is. The other ninety-five percent live north of the Orinoco River.
The United States is a democracy. They have their own Constitution, own laws and own system of measurement. Their money is the United States dollar. It is worth 100 cents in the United States.
Austria is a federal republic. It became an independent country in November of 1918. Their system of money is the Euro which is worth 100 eurocent. Sixty-seven percent of the population is services, which means that most of the people are in the government. The rest are either working in the industry or agriculture. A small portion of the people are unemployed.
The government of Mali is republic. It gained it’s independence on September 22, 1960 from France. Mali adopted it’s constitution on January 22, 1992. Their system of law is based on the French’s civil law system. Most of the occupations in Mali are agriculture and fishing. This means that most of their population is employed but only by two occupations.
In Venezuela, their government is a little different. There is a federal republic. Most of their employment is in services and the rest is split up between industry and agriculture. Their labor force makes 9.9 billion dollars every year.
This is what it means to be economically free. It is the struggles that each country makes to continue to be economically free. This is what it all stands for. These four countries are just a few out of all of the countries in he world. Most of them are not economically free and their population is slowly dying off.
Like I have said in the beginning, different countries can have different economic freedoms but, at the same time, they can all have their own strengths and weaknesses. This is proof that in more ways than one, all of the countries in the world are different, while having similar characteristics. They all have a population, they all have different types of money, and they all have agriculture. So all of the countries are the same, but they face similar struggles in the realm of economy. Without a strong system to make money, a nation will find it difficult to survive. Thus, economic freedom plays a major role in the future of any nation.
Answers To Questions Prompted By The Required Reading
The Benefits of Free
Trade
Q1- Be the Devil's Advocate and counter Benjamin Franklin's statement that "No
nation was ever ruined by trade."
This means that your country will not have any of the supplies that it relies on because they have traded them all for other material items that they do not need.
Index of Economic Freedom and Annual Report (Chapter 3 for links to countries) Q2- Name five countries whose ranking surprised you.
Venezuela-
repressed, Morocco-mostly un-free, Colombia- mostly un-free, Germany-mostly
free, Chile-Free
Q3- Write one sentence each to explain why you chose the countries you did in
Q2.
Because everyone thinks of Chile as a third world country, so I expected it to be in mostly un-free or repressed. Basically, I thought that none of these countries would have been located in any of the columns that they were. It was very surprising to me when I saw that Colombia was a mostly un-free country. I thought it would be a mostly free country because of all the trade that comes in and out of that certain country.
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.
My instructor, fellow students and I were unable to find the answer to this question in the text.