Rich Countries on Whether Any Day Is a Good One
January 6, 2015 7:00am by Barry Ritholtz
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10 Tuesday AM Reads
It’s always a bad day with Obama in the White House in GOP ville.
The Stand in on CNBC Sqwack Box, some ex-banker Just golfed with an Oil CEO and sad oil’s going to 70-80. Oh. I see.
And the energy meme is how in spite of being wrong about predicting Obama’s “energy policy” will collapse the nation, Obama stumbled into lower prices because of GOP demands for Drill, Baby, Drill ….and energy is a natonal security issue…. when it comes to Keystone, but NOT Solyndra, and alt. energies. I see GOP. Thank you fro your “philosophy.”
And he thinks the problem is the “labor participation rate” but they never seem to mention there are FIVE MILLION JOB OPENINGS in the US.
http://www.bls.gov/jlt/
The CNBC Guest-host guy “Doesn’t see” the 5% GDP number. I see GOP, I see.
For the first time in years I’ve seen help wanted signs offering 10 -22 $ an hour hanging outside.
2015 may see the results of three state-wide economic experiments that have been going on for a couple of years. These are states that are small and defined enough without super diversified economies (like CA, TX, NY) and where people tend to live and work (unlike say NYC area where many people work but live in different states.
1. Washington State will have had the highest minimum wage in the country for at least a couple of years – according to some thinkers, they should see unemployment rise. http://www.khq.com/story/27750497/washington-minimum-wage-gets-15-cent-bump-per-hour
2. Kansas will see another year Brownback’s government austerity and tax cut policies. A number of theorists believe this should propel the Kansas economy forward to lower unemployment.
3. North Dakota has been the beneficiary of a “Drill baby drill” policy that has greatly increased employment and wealth in the state. We should see how sustainable those economic improvements are in 2015.
Regardless of the results, I doubt politicians will learn much from these experiments.
Wealth
“Men do not desire merely to be rich, but to be richer than other men.”
John Stuart Mill, Essay on Social Freedom
Happiness is independent of wealth. Rich people shoot themselves more frequently than poor people (per capita). The prevailing theory is that unhappy poor people think that they wouldn’t be unhappy if they were rich but rich people know better.
Maybe it’s really a u-shaped function.
When you are poor, you need to think it’s a good day as a matter of coping; in the middle you get to think, “meh, it could be better”; when you get rich, you are secure enough (e.g., health insurance, some savings) to realize, “damn, this is great!”.
Maybe.
I love that quote and it’s so true, but still, I don’t completely buy the “money doesn’t buy happiness” statement.