Artcile on the BBC:
Happiness revisited: Does money make us happy after all?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8484368.stm
Looks like the people at Davos have been looking at the issue of happiness and welath - but not very closely as far as I can tell. Funnily enough, I have been planning an article about this very subject as it is absolutely fundamental to the whole issue.
The main question is "can money buy you happiness?" but that of course depends on where you are. If you are a subsistence farmer living on less than $2 a day, another $50 a day will help your level of happiness. However, if you are living on $150,000 per year, another $50 a day will make no differnece at all - and this is the problem. As we get more wealthy we need ever larger sums to make us happy. It's an addiction - to begin with, small increases in wealth make us happy, but the happiness soon wears off as this new level of wealth becomes normal. We then have to chase a larger income to get the same result. If you take this process far enough you end up with city bankers 'nneding' their multi million dollar bonuses - just to keep them feeling normal.
Sad really. Maybe we all need a 12 step plan...