Dick Smith's Population Puzzle Case Study

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Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle Opportunity Cost Opportunity cost is the benefit that could have been gained from an alternative use of the same resource. In Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle, the main opportunity cost addressed is: that allowing immigrants into Australia will put pressure on resources, hence jeopardizing a sustainable Australia. From the transcript, it can be interpreted that farmers are being paid large amounts of money to plough producing crops back into the ground. At the same time, the same Government is planning on increasing Australia’s population by 60%. Consequently, the economic interdependence for food would be reliant on governments globally. So, the opportunity cost of increasing Australia’s population is the food production on the land which is now being used for more houses to be built. In this case, the opportunity cost has not been considered properly; with minimal food…show more content…
The issue of scarcity is that human’s wants are more or less unlimited. So, as consequence to an increase of immigrants in Australia, resources will become more scarce, and eventually, the resources we use for food will become absolutely scarce. This will become a concern globally, as Australia currently exports 60% of the food produced. From this, a global interdependence has been developed for such exports internationally and the monetary value it carries for Australia. Therefore, the economic problem will incur, causing an extreme decrease in the country’s GDP. The article illustrated that population growth plays an important role in creating the economic problem of scarcity within Australia, so the concept should be considered by the governments before decisions with respect to a “Big Australia” are
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