The Economic Problem
Need: a good or service essential for living. Examples include water and food and shelter.
Want: a good or service that people would like to have, but is not required for living. Examples
include cars and watching movies.
Scarcity is the basic economic problem. It is a situation that exists when there are unlimited
wants and limited resources to produce the goods and services to satisfy those wants. For
example, we have a limited amount of money but there are a lot of things we would like to buy,
using the money.