What Makes You Happy?

Taken from The Economist 25/02/2012

There’s a saying: Money can’t buy you happiness. Numerous surveys have shown that this is indeed true, the people in the richest countries are seldom the happiest ones. Today’s Economist has a very interesting article about the connection between income and happiness and how it has changed from (pre-crises) 2007 to 2011. Apart from stating the obvious, the article brings up a very striking fact:

Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc

So why have you not realised your potential yet? Is it because your health is not very good? Or you are sleepy in the mornings? Or too short to make it far? Or maybe your parents humiliated you when you were young and this left you to be an underachiever to the rest of your life?

Whatever your excuse is, at the age of 52, Ray Kroc had better ones: not only was he way older than you, dear reader, are now, but he also had diabetes. And incipient arthritis. He had lost his gall bladder and most of his thyroid gland. His personal life was a mess.

But Ray still managed to create McDonalds.

The Ponzi scheme called Europe

Compared to european governments, this guy is a beginner.

The burning question for the sovereign bondholders today seems to be: Can Greece and Italy pay us back? In reality, that’s a wrong question to ask (they can’t). The real question for a bondholder should be: Can countries such as France and Great Britain pay us back?

“In Time” and the lesson of the time-economy

NB! Spoiler alert!

The other day in Birmingham I went to see the movie “In Time”. The movie was good entertainment with simple yet interesting plot and good actors. A typical Hollywood movie with thrilling plot, lot of action and happy ending, it captivated me with the very different economy in it:

People stop aging at 25 and are then given one year of time starting at the age of 25. Time is the (only) currency of the community and as long as you have time, you can live forever. All products and wages are priced in units of time, which are taken/given to you. Time can be transferred directly between people or stored in external modules. If your ticker (which is ticking down constantly) goes to zero, you are dead.