Jacob Segal <jpsegal at rcn.com>asketh q. on happiness>
(I'll take, the album of the same title by Lisa Germino on 4AD as a good guide to unhappiness. http://www.4ad.com/frameset.html Or, Robert Lane, "The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, " recently published by Yale Univ. Press. From www.bn.com In this book, Lane deeply explores extensive survey and experimental data studies of subjective well-being and depression. He finds evidence of growing unhappiness in the U.S. and rising clinical depression in all advanced market democracies. In seeking to account for this "infelicity," Lane broadly inquires how markets, democracies, and individuals fail to help people in their pursuit of happiness. He shows how market economies contribute to ill-being and how political democracies fail to repair the damage. He finds that in truth happiness is found in our relationships with family and friends rather than a large salary (as long as one is above the poverty line). Lane presents a powerful, very different view of the supposed recent triumph of market democracies. http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=The%20Loss%20of%20Happiness%20 in%20Market%20Democracies%20
On Robert Samuelson>on anything, has the value of used chewing gum. What was that complacent and smug book of his on prosperity of a few yrs. ago?
He isn't related to Paul, btw? True story, one day after school, first grade, Dad asked at dinner table, what I'd learned that day. Said, "Economics," (had just seen The Peanuts movie where Charlie does not know how to spell opthemologist, so I was using a big word, as was my way even then...), by which I meant how to count change (lemonheads were 12 cents at 7-11 in '66). Dad drags out the Paul Samuelson Econ 101 tome. I probably spilled my milk for the millionth time...
Michael Pugliese