Stock Market Plummets: Falls to levels not seen since 1997.

[trule]

Objectively we all know that $150,000 is more than $100,000, but if the economists who studied this got it right, people will actually feel better off with an income of $100,000 living in a community where their neighbors make $75,000, than they would making $150,000 in a community where their neighbors make $200,000. That's startling. Consider the implications!

LOL, do economists get anything right! So far the track record is not so good

Most people, obviously not you and quite possibly not me, measure their wealth against those they see each day. The absolute value is not important, the relative value is...I earn more than him therefore I must be better.

 

[trule]

Did anyone catch World News with Charles Gibson? Profiling how Dodger Stadium Job Fair had 4,500 people applying for 500 jobs.

California has 8th largest economy in the world and now has a 10% unemployment rate - 2million out of work and rising. It is being terminated!

What happened?

too much debt

 

[IJ Reilly]

LOL, do economists get anything right! So far the track record is not so good

Most people, obviously not you and quite possibly not me, measure their wealth against those they see each day. The absolute value is not important, the relative value is...I earn more than him therefore I must be better.

Well give the economist who authored the study some credit. He tested the theory that what brings people satisfaction wasn't objective wealth so much as doing better relative to someone else. I'm certainly not an expert in economics, but it seems to me that a branch of the "dismal science" is opening up that doesn't assume that people are perfect economic actors, that they don't always pursue their best economic interests. I always thought that was obvious by observing human nature, but up to now, maybe it hasn't been so apparent to economists.