March 13, 2019

GDP is not a practical metric for measuring wellness or guiding transitions to better products and services and governments because it doesn’t differentiate between harmful (polluting, causing early death) activities and those creating longer lives and cleaner environments.

There are lots of discussions about replacing GDP and new indexes.

Using GDP to compare countries or with smaller administrative divisions like states or provinces, we see Texas on the same level as Canada, Pennsylvania compares to Saudi Arabia.

Looking at wellness (full health) as the key factor, Pennsylvania is and is not similar to Saudi Arabia. Here are a few points:

• Life expectancy is five years higher in Pennsylvania.

• Pennsylvania has a death penalty, but does not execute. Saudi Arabia executes over a hundred people each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Saudi_Arabia
• Pennsylvania has a much higher rate of incarceration, 810 per 100,000 population vs 197.
  • https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/
  • http://prisonstudies.org/country/saudi-arabia
  • https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/01/pennsylvania-prison-population-drops-again.html
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_and_correctional_supervision_rate

• Both areas have high air pollution
  https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world-ranked/28/
  https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-cities-have-some-of-the-worst-air-pollution-in-the-country/

New Jersey and Taiwan. How do they compare using the High Yield Medallion? Just looking at the first two rays, Wellness and Pollution (tax rates/collected can also be compared)

• Life expectancy is a few years higher in New Jersey https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+Taiwan&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS522US522&oq=life+expectancy+Taiwan&aqs=chrome..69i57.5459j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8http://newjersey.news12.com/story/37939512/study-new-jersey-ranks-7th-with-highest-life-expectancy
• Taiwan has moderate air pollution. New Jersey is one of the worst places in the USAhttps://www.numbeo.com/pollution/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2019&region=142https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/environment/2018/04/18/new-jerseys-air-among-worst-nation/521041002/
• Taiwan has a larger population than New Jersey, 23.5 million vs 9 million https://www.google.com/search?q=taiwan+population&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS522US522&oq=taiwan+population&aqs=chrome..69i57.4566j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/new-jersey-population/
• The number of reported homeless people is about equal, about 9,000. https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/nj/https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/homeless-problem-becomes-worse-taiwan-10739484