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Two Cents on the Easterlin Paradox
April 23, 2008 Behavior

Much has been made recently of economic findings that seem to refute the Easterlin Paradox. The paradox is simple – in research done in the 1970s, there was no apparent connection between wealth and happiness (in cross-country or within country average data). Critics of “greed-seeking”, “soulless” capitalism have used this for decades to push for redistributive schemes that decrease the disparity in relative incomes, because it did not seem that absolute income mattered all that much once people have moved beyond a subsistence lifestyle.

My only question is this, assuming that this “paradox” is in fact true: why then is the U.S. government taking such great measures, and at such extraordinary costs, to prevent the economy from slipping into recession, from foreclosures happening on homes, etc.?

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