Comments on: If the U.S. Is So Rich, Why Isn’t It Happier?

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:07:43 +0000

Reminds me of a story…Supposedly Milton Friedman was once asked why the people of Sweden were so rich despite their high taxes. Friedman said something like, “Well, we have a lot of rich Swedes in America too.”

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:52:58 +0000

Christopher, Sadly no. I had three different people cancel on me this week and I ended up with nothing.

By: Christopher Monnier

Christopher Monnier — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:42:49 +0000

Off topic: Is there no episode of Free Will today (Monday, March 10th)? It looks like Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Chait are on for today…?

By: Winton Bates

Winton Bates — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:07:25 +0000

I wonder how you would expect the States with a high proportion of immigrants from Latin America to rate in terms of their happiness? Given that Mexicans appear to be just about as happy as U.S. citizens it would be interesting to know if they avow even higher happiness levels after they migrate.

Given that subjective measures of happiness are strongly influenced by cultural factors I wonder whether anyone has attempted to construct a revealed happiness index based on migration flows across the world. The basic idea is that migrants are voting with their feet about their prospects of happiness in different countries.

By: Dain

Dain — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:44:41 +0000

As a California guy, I first visited Minnesota when my cousins moved there in 1989. It was winter and I was blown away by how much suburban Minneapolis – Chanhassen and Minnetonka – reminded me of the movies Uncle Buck and Home alone (hey, I was eleven). A winter wonderland with cool sports and activities I never saw at home, like hockey and ice skating. So clean too.

Summer was humid with tons of mosquitos, which kinda sucked, but still, the abundance of trees was visually appealing. The central valley in California is rather ugly looking, a flat marshland/chaparal.

I realize now that I wouldnt’ trade California’s incredibly diverse culture (including women) for all that, but it’d sure be cool, literally, to have a winter retreat on some frozen lake in Minnesota. I’m now in the bay area Cali, an awesome place if not infrastructurally dilapidated.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:40:16 +0000

As a Minnesotan by birth, I can affirm that they are indeed a happy lot, despite the weather. Steve Sailer has made a similar point about how alike Minnesota is to Scandinavian countries.

By: Trevor Soma

Trevor Soma — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:59:49 +0000

At the Economist debate in NY back in November (nice job, by the way), I had thought about the same issue and considered posing a question about the usefulness of happiness data for the US as a whole instead of for states or regions. By that time, unfortunately, the moderator had closed the audience-questioning round.