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Decoupling personal happiness from accumulation of consumer goods as an end in itself seems like both a positive and a conceivable thing to me, even if it were
by morsch 11y ago
Decoupling personal happiness from accumulation of consumer goods as an end in itself seems like both a positive and a conceivable thing to me, even if it were a cultural meme with roots that are out of people's direct control such as an economic downturn. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
- beatpanda 11y agoWe're not in an economic downturn, either in the U.S. or China. Workers just aren't seeing the benefits of a return to economic growth.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoWhich, from the workers' POV, is the same as still being in a downturn.
- dmix 11y agoIf x age group, social group, or "middle class" is experiencing an economic downturn - but the country as a whole is stable or upward - are they not still in an economic downturn? This is a very common phenomenon with statistics... for example I frequently come across people citing that x time in history had early death rates - so you likely wouldn't have lived past 40 - without explaining the majority of deaths were due to infant death from disease. But if they in fact made it past early childhood then those projected maximum age numbers were not relevant. This is why it's important to not plan based on global averages. One reason why conducting "cohort analysis" is very important in business analytics.
- beatpanda 11y agoRight, but calling it an "economic downturn" confuses the issue in the same way not including infant mortality does. The important thing to realize here is that the economy is growing, i.e. more overall wealth is being generated. That enables you to ask the question -- if there's more wealth being generated but most people in society are seeing their wealth and income stagnate or decrease, what is going on, and why?
- dmix 11y agoWell in that context the next question should be does growth need to be distributed evenly for the economy to be considered 'healthy'. But for individuals such as the person mentioned in the article this is less relevant, they shouldn't make financial decisions or life choices as if everything is good because the macro-level is seeing positive growth.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoDecent housing is not "consumer goods". People nowdays can afford to buy a new smartphone every year, but they can only afford to live in a tiny capsule far far away from their work and social life. This is not healthy.