Monday, October 28, 2013

Quote of the Day: Measuring Well-Being

Consumption is what we do, and, no matter how often it is demonstrated to be unsatisfying, we go on believing in it. No American Administration has ever seriously considered a yardstick for success other than the G.N.P. Our economists point to the long-term stagnation of the Japanese economy as though it were an index of discomfort and unhappiness, despite the fact that the Japanese live better in almost all ways than nearly ninety-nine per cent of the people on the planet. My parents were two educated (Harvard, Regis) members of blue-collar families. I noticed early that their view of success had not made them happy, while the siblings they had “left behind” were quite merry.-Thomas McGuane, The New Yorker