The Economics of Unhappiness

The Economist reports that Lord Layard has discovered that a significant portion of unhappiness is caused by other people having bigger incomes, no matter what the unhappy person's income is, mind you. His prescription: "near the top of Lord Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race."

The idea seems to be that people who earn more money thereby make others unhappy, so let the currently affluent work as hard as they might, but take their mean-spirited money away from them. Not too surprisingly, Lord Layard is both an economist himself and a Labour Party peer.

Unexplained, at least in the article, is why the government couldn't make everyone ecstatic by removing all of their income.

Clik above or copy/paste: http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3555887

Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for the lead. http://www.artsandlettersdaily.com/