this graph on the front page:

to avoid the most immediate reactions of anti-Americanism, but it should be okay down here...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

As an American, I don't know why an American should be defensive about this (though invariably some people act as though any critique of the American model is next to evil...). What is interesting is that we have had a number of conversations around here in the last year about alternatives to GDP as a measure of success, and...irony of ironies...it is a bank that presents us an interesting alternative modeal. I like it. How can we get this...or something close to this...to become the coiin of the realm?? Well, I guess by talking about it, to start with...great catch!!

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

Medical expenditure as a result of air and noise pollution also adds to GDP as do diet classes, antidepressants and a sizeable list of other items.

And broken toilets.  Unless, perhaps, you're French?

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

The question could be: how much of our activity is fighting entropy, and how much of that can be counted as worthwhile?

100% of our worthwhile activity is fighting entropy.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. — Euripides

Interesting representation.

It serves to emphasise the sheer insanity of a system which measures an Economy not upon "Value" but upon "Claims over Value" issued by credit institutions.

AntiMatter instead of Matter

Value is - unlike Price - indefinable - or better, definable only in relative terms - and comes in many forms, of which perhaps the most important are:
(a) "Emotional Value" - at its most basic, the need to love and to be loved, but extending into the concept of Society;
(b) "Spiritual Value" - who am I? Why am I here? Questions in relation to God and the relationship with the eternal.

We must re-base, or reverse the polarity, of our current system so that it is no longer based upon a Deficit.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Great report.  Lots of quotable parts.

"50% of happiness is genetically determined"...Half of my (possibility for) happiness is reliant on genes?  (Is that a misreading?)  I don't know what that means or implies.  (It sounds a lot.)

(My emphasis.)

At the end we get:

Could anyone from Sweden report back on number 5?  Have studies been undertaken?  

(I wonder if Sweden has seen a drop in the sale of certain types of toys and food products?  I'm thinking of plastic toys, sweets, and fizzy pop.)

Great find, Jerome.  Thanks.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

It is interesting how little attention is paid to religion in all the studies. Praying was listed in the Texas survey.

Given the rise of the religious right in the US and Muslim fundamentalism elsewhere, the lack of any measure to see whether this is adding to happiness or not seems a big oversight.

Looking at the behavior of these groups their increased religious participation seems only to make them angry and dissatisfied with their societies.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

This is the best piece of writing on this subject I've seen, presenting a good case for relativising GDP, and showing the other metrics that are proposed by different bodies, think tanks, etc.

First-rate!

Wonder what kind of response this wold get on DKos?

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

The only reason this American would complain about such a chart is that it is framed in terms of France versus the U.S.A. In fact, France and the U.S.A. are a lot more alike than many pairs of countries, and this sort of discussion is simply fraternal bickering.

If you really want to do a comparison, do it with Ghana, or Peru, or Indonesia. There are happy people in the poorest places in India and Africa. Does this mean that we should simply all become monks?

Besides, who ever proposed the equation GDP = happiness. Attempts to increase GDP are simply that, attempts to increase GDP. If you want to increase happiness, then define a metric and figure out how to improve it.

I've focused the title of the story on one concept which I find quite enlightening and which might be the easiest to measure: that of "regrettables":

GDP includes many items that do not boost human wellbeing. If a hurricane or an earthquake destroys an entire region, the reconstruction effort is counted as a boost to GDP - even if it only replaces something that was there not long before.

Not only that. The spending will often go at the cost of wealth.

The chart shown does cut some corners in assuming that happiness is the greatest good. This hints at a utilitarian approach, which is largely discredited in moral philosophy.