Apr
9
2009
In 2006, the NEF (New Economics Foundation) released the results of a comprehensive study they’d done on happiness in various countries in the form of the Happy Planet Index. The goal was to find a way to measure the success of a society other than things like GDP or HDI. Its a little simplistic to call the index a measure of happiness since its really intended to be a measure of a society’s capability to sustain and produce a happy populace. Which is more different than you might think. For those that are interested the Wikipedia page on the HPI discusses it pretty thoroughly.
Anyway, Vanuatu came out on top all things considered. In fact the top ten are nearly all third-world countries. But this isn’t too surprising to those who have spent time in a third-world country, since it doesn’t take long to realize that financial success ≠ societal happiness. I bring this up now because Mental_Floss posted a great article the other day about one author’s travels to Vanuatu in an attempt to find out how they made it to the top of the list. His observations are pretty interesting I think, and they remind me a lot of Ghana. Here’s a link to the article:
Vanuatu: The Happiest Place on Earth? | Mental_Floss
I’m not going to launch into any kind of analysis of why these people are happier, but feel free to leave your thoughts about the issue in the comments. Also, if you’d like to see the rank that the US ended up with on the “Happiness Index” out of 178 countries examined, just click “continue reading”… Continue reading
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2 comments | tags: GDP, Happiness, HDI, HPI, Society, Success, Third-world Country, Vanuatu | posted in Philosophy
Mar
24
2009
Just a few comments on President Obama’s press conference tonight, it will be quick because I’ve got a lot to study. I’ve got the whole thing posted at the end of this article but I wanted to highlight this clip where he addresses issues surrounding his proposed budget. Its short, and if you’re concerned at all about the 3.6 trillion budget the administration recently proposed its a good one to watch.
I’m probably going to do a larger post about the budget at a later date but I think he does a great job of hitting some of the common concerns head on. One thing he talks about is that, like with the stimulus plan and the bank bailout, we have to remember that it’s not a choice between increasing the deficit and not increasing the deficit! The deficit will increase over the next several years. Its a matter of choosing the path that will increase it the least. And we also have to remember that a slow-growing, or shrinking, economy reduces government inflows and increases our deficit significantly. The idea is to boost spending in ways that will stimulate the economy such that it offsets the costs of that spending.
So I don’t think we can just say, “why don’t we spend less to decrease the deficit?” Cutting valuable spending will likely
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2 comments | tags: 3.6 Trillion, Budget, CBO, Deficit, GDP, March, Obama, Press Conference, Spending, Stimulus, Taxes | posted in Current Events, Politics
Mar
10
2009
Well I’ve had several questions lately about a statement I made in my post CA Obstructionism and Political Games in which I was pretty dismissive of tax cuts in the stimulus bill. All the questions came via email of course (this is what the commenting system is for guys! You can comment anonymously if you want!). Anyway, while I’m planning on writing a much larger treatise on tax policy at some later date, I thought I’d address why I think tax cuts provide for relatively little stimulus. I’m going to try to keep it as non-technical and conversational as possible. And I should note before I begin that the principles I’ll present in this post are not universally agreed upon in the field of economics, but they are reflective of the economic philosophies that seem most reasonable to me given my educational experiences, and the views that are most widely held among economists today. So with that, lets just jump right in, this is the trouble with tax cuts as far as I can tell… Continue reading
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8 comments | tags: Economics, Economy, GDP, Government Spending, Growth, Joseph Stiglitz, Mark Zandi, Money, Spending, Spending Multiplier, Stimulus, Tax Cuts, Trouble | posted in Political Principles, Politics
