Several researchers have noted that there is a tendency for average life satisfaction to be lower in the countries with high economic growth rates even though there is strong evidence that average life satisfaction is higher in countries with higher incomes. Carol Graham and Eduardo Lora have referred to this as the ‘paradox of unhappy [...]

The vampire squids of Wall Street and Washington DC are parasitic organisms and you are locked in mortal combat with them.  They desire to suck all the value they can from you and then toss your carcass aside.  As with most parasites they prefer subtle tactics that do not attract attention.
But now the spotlight is [...]

In my last post I suggested that the reasons why rapid economic growth has not resulted in increased average life satisfaction in China over the last couple of decades have more to do with rising aspirations than with increased income inequality. In this post I want to consider those issues further.
My first point is that [...]

J S Mill wrote: “The laws and conditions of the Production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them. … It is not so with the Distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can [...]

In his recent paper, “Thinking clearly about economic inequality”, Will Wilkinson – a research fellow at the Cato Institute in the U.S. (and prominent blogger)- mentions some reasons why Nicole Kidman is wealthy. He states: “Nicole Kidman is fabulously wealthy because millions of individuals have chosen to see a movie with Nicole Kidman in it [...]

Poverty and affluence may be relative concepts, but they are absolute experiences. A striking and dangerous feature of the recent global economic downturn is the ways in which it has blurred, if not reversed, the relativity and absoluteness of these two historically imminent psychosocial and economic conditions on individual, corporate and international levels. The [...]

I was living in Mexico in the mid-1980s when I decided to get serious about my health and fitness. I began by sponsoring a basketball team in a city league in Merida, Yucatan.
Running the court with kids half my age helped to get me in the best physical condition of my life. Paying for [...]

Revolutionary Wealth: How It Will Be Created and How It Will Change Our Lives. By Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Knopf, 2006. 512 pages. $15.95.
In 1970, Alvin Toffler published Future Shock, an analysis of the accelerating waves of change moving through society. Toffler built on a number of movements already underway both social (the changes he [...]