Money and Power Don't Bring Happiness Essay

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As you know these words come from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, perhaps one of the greatest documents ever written. However, I do have a little problem with the last four words sentence, “the pursuit of Happiness” because I believe it actually sends an easily misinterpreted message.

Every other Monday morning the workers of the fast food restaurant next door line up in my lobby waiting to cash their paychecks. There is a wide range of ages, races, and sexes; there is no one demographic in the lobby. The conversations are about coworkers not present or about their spouses. They complain about the long shifts or an angry customer they encountered in the drive up this morning. One young woman discusses her daughter’s adventures at kindergarten. There are complaints of the cost of car repairs or a visit to the hospital last week. There are questions of who is working tonight and what time does the bus come, all of these conversations could be happening in any bank lobby anywhere in the United States. The noise level continues to rise in the lobby as more workers enter the building, the energy in the lobby rises as the excitement of the workers increases, today is payday. Or is it anxiety? Are their thoughts, masked behind idle chit chat, of how am I going to pay rent and feed my family? How am I going to make this pay last for two weeks? These fellow humans are the full time working poor.

Lisa who lives in Sweden lives a happy lifestyle. She has everything that anyone can ask for. A great job, health care, an education, and a government that invests in her and her people. In a not so great part of the world, Rida who lives in Iraq lives an unhappy lifestyle. Her family of 10 can barely support themselves and cannot afford to send Rida to school. And Health care in her country is one of the worst in the world. Happiness levels in a country differ from one another because of the circumstances they are in. Countries having the same circumstances can differ on happiness levels. If you were to put the U.S. and a country like Netherlands together, they both are sort of the same. Good health care, education, and employment. But in actuality, the Netherlands are a much happier nation than the U.S. In ‘Celebrating Happiness Day With The Happiest (And Saddest) Countries,’ by, Hayley Munguia, shows us where each country ranks based on happiness. The Netherlands are ranked fourth while the U.S. is ranked seventeenth on the chart.

For our Economics subject, we watched The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie based on Chris Gardner, a salesman who was not making that much money and eventually experiences homelessness with his five-year old son. He faces problems when his wife is unwilling to accept his goal to become a stockbroker and leaves him. However, he perseveres even under all this stress.

Nations trade with one another because it is mutually advantageous for both parties when one is more efficient at producing a certain good and at a lower cost, and the other is proficient at producing a different good or service more efficiently. This is based on Ricaro’s theory of comparative advantage.

The essay “Does Money Buy Happiness?” by Don Peck and Ross Douthat which was originally published as the January/February 2003 issue of the Atlantic discusses how wealthier countries are happier than non wealthy countries, with some exceptions. In paragraph 2, Peck and Douthat wrote the claim as “Money does buy happiness-but only to a point” (332) and justifies by using Robert E. Lane’s argument and charts to support their claim (use of logos). In paragraph 3-4, the authors made assumptions by saying “The fact that richer countries are in general, happier than poorer ones may not seem terribly surprising, it does suggest that continuing economic development will generate rising happiness worldwide. That said, there are clear limits to what

However, it was apparent to economists that nations with similar resource endowments exchanged similar products with each other. Economists felt that trade explained solely by comparative advantage was an incomplete analysis of international trade. Furthermore, since the classical trade theory was unable to explain intraindustry trade, economists decided to expand on the classical trade theory by creating a new theory of trade (Carbaugh, 2011). The new theory states that economies of scale provide incentive for a country to specialize in a particular product (Carbaugh, 2011). Furthermore, based on economies of scale, nations with similar factor endowments will trade with each other as sometimes it is beneficial (Carbaugh, 2011). Arguments stemming from this new trade theory puts the economic case for free trade in doubt.

Although Americans do look better and feel better with the extravagant items they purchase, money doesn’t buy happiness for long term goals. Like many will argue, like Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson did in his 2013 article, “Yes, Money Does Buy Happiness: 6 Lessons on the Newest Research on Income and Well-Being,” money can only buy happiness for short term goals; it won’t last very long for everyone and it could lead to worse scenarios when the money is gone. Thompson (2013) included statistics on richer countries that are proven to be happier, explaining, “First, the lines go up. More money, more happiness. Second, the lines go up in parallel, more or less. Across language, culture, religion, ethnic background, the same amount of extra money seems to buy the similar amount of extra happiness.” Thompson (2013) found the same similar pattern in many other countries and concluded that they are more happy than poorer countries. Although poorer countries don’t have as many resources or many things like richer countries do, Seth Borenstein, in his 2017 article for The Independent, “Norway Beats Denmark to be Named the Happiest Country in the World by the UN,” can beg to differ. Borenstein (2017) says, “While most countries were either getting happier or at least treading water, America's happiness score dropped 5 per cent over the past decade” (Borenstein, 2017). That shows that America, one of the richest

“People who try to buy their way to happiness are often disappointed.” The reason for this is because you can’t buy happiness it comes from your family, the people around you and your physical surroundings. Some people try to buy themselves happiness and at some point in time they may be happy but it eventually does backfire on them because in the end no matter what money can’t buy you happiness.

Unlike our predecessors, the society is now affected by a manifold of dynamics which affect the ways of life and the living standards of people. The change of society has created the need for citizens to be more reliant on the politics of their country, the social conditions of the country, as well as the economic prosperity that may affect where they live. In this report, the living standards of citizens in different countries will be analyzed and shown. From observing the several countries in the world, an analysis will be made to discover what makes the living standards of one country higher than another. Several organizations are already performing this type of research, such as UNICEF; an organization which would rather promote happiness and wellness of citizens in a country rather than only considering the economical factors provided. Instead of solely judging a country by its GDP, or essentially its numerical productivity, there is numerical data for happiness, otherwise known as the Gross National Happiness1. This was created by the King of Bhutan, the leader of a communist country, and the GHP was measured by the social, economic, and political conditions within the country1. Used by major organizations now across the world including UNICEF, I also agree that a country should not only be measured by the economical standards as it is not the only

Money doesn't buy happiness; it brings it. The term does not mean it literally buys happiness. It means it buys things that make people happy. People always say that money cannot buy happiness. This is true and will be proven.

The country can maximize their wealth by putting the resources in the most competitive industries. Government created comparative advantage rather than free trade because now easier moves the production processes and the machines into countries that can produce more goods (Yeager & Tuereck, 1984). However, many countries now move to new trade theory suggests the ability firms to limit the number of competitors associated with economic scale (reduction of costs with a large scale of output) (Krugman, 1992). The comparative advantage occurs when two-way trade in identical products, it will useful where economic scale is important, but it will create problem with this model. As a result, government must intervene in international trade for protection to domestic firms (Krugman, 1990)

In the book “Money can buy Happiness” tells about spending money on important and substantial things that bring us long lasting happiness. It provide some helpful information and tips which can be applied in our daily living. If you want to find out how to put together the most of your money in order to get a good and happy life (good return on investment). This book also creates awareness of how we spend our money, investments and savings wisely. For those who wants to analyze whether their spending habits align with their values, this book can be an eye opener for them.

The Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 spawned two IFIs, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, in order to rebuild a

The principle of comparative advantage provides a simplified theory explaining why free trade is possible, even when one country has an economic disadvantage. Both the Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin theories rely on fixed economic assumptions of constant return and perfect competition. However, intuitively the basic principle of business is to increase returns through innovation, improving processes and technology or increasing economies of scale. Organizations understand they control pricing and are price setters, rather than price takers as suggested by perfect competition (Krugman & Obstfeld, 2003). The idea of increasing returns and imperfect competition challenge the foundations of comparative advantage.