Health and Wealth
We have bad metrics as a society. Rather than GDP, GDP-per-capita, or the stock market perhaps we should have dashboards of:
- life expectancy (health)
- net worth (wealth)
A good leader is one who improves these metrics for individuals & society as a whole.
We have bad metrics as a society. Rather than GDP, GDP-per-capita, or the stock market perhaps we should have dashboards of:
- life expectancy (health)
- net worth (wealth)
A good leader is one who improves these metrics for individuals & society as a whole.
Reasoning:
- Most people can't tell you how to compute GDP
- But they can tell you what net worth and life expectancy are
- So they know what it means for those numbers to go up
- And they know that making them go up is valuable
If these numbers went up for you, life improved.
- Most people can't tell you how to compute GDP
- But they can tell you what net worth and life expectancy are
- So they know what it means for those numbers to go up
- And they know that making them go up is valuable
If these numbers went up for you, life improved.
By adding health, we add Andy Grove's paired metric. We don't just focus on economics alone, because you can optimize & distort financial metrics at the expense of health.
For example, it's been hypothesized that the rise in diabetes is due in part to sugar subsidies.
For example, it's been hypothesized that the rise in diabetes is due in part to sugar subsidies.
Btw, some people have mentioned HDI. This is actually a bad metric because it's hard to explain and reason about, and it's not a simple ratio-scale variable.
You can understand 72.3 years of life expectancy. You can't understand 0.614 HDI. hdr.undp.org/sites/default/…
You can understand 72.3 years of life expectancy. You can't understand 0.614 HDI. hdr.undp.org/sites/default/…
