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December 11, 2009
Christmas card illustrating Americans' compassion or lack thereof....
By Cindy Ivanac-Lillig
Ever thought about putting a supply and demand graph on the front of your Christmas card -- check this one out on the Economix blog -- click here. Pretty funny, huh? More seriously though, I think that Reinhardt's conceptual idea is interesting. Does compassion adhere to supply and demand theorems?
The author, in a playful way, asks the reader to think about whether or not Europeans are more compassionate than Americans -- or is it just that Europeans can afford to be more compassionate? It is an interesting context for the theory of supply and demand especially given our current conversation about health insurance reform. If our equilibrium price is too high for kind acts, then maybe we should all revisit our intro textbooks and look at what factors would increase supply and in turn lower the equilibrium price and increase the quantity of kind acts towards the poor. Hmmm....
What other difficult societal issues can be looked at through the lens of supply and demand? For my readers that are educators, maybe this would be a really interesting assignment....
What do you all think?
Posted by Cindy at December 11, 2009 7:08 PM
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