Lifestyle topics
There has been an inexorable rise in anxiety and depression on both sides of the Atlantic in the last 80 years. These are some of the causes: – an unhealthy preoccupation with fame, money, image and pressure to have sex at far too young an age. This generation is faced with more sexualization and more …
Continue reading ‘Unhappy young people – some reasons (no. 2)’ »
A few weeks ago the teenage daughter of a friend of a good friend of our took her own life. I don’t know the circumstances, but know she was a troubled child. Something is undermining young people’s mental health, especially that of girls. A study conducted by Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego …
A short time ago My wife and I returned from Florida. Those who have done any flying recently will know that the trend towards making the customer do everything himself has extended in spades to airlines. You check yourself in. You pay $25 per checked-in bag, yourself. You take the bag sticker and you …
Choosing a financial advisor is one of the most difficult things one can undertake. A study called,”The Market for Financial Adviser misconduct” (curious title) says that out of a database of 1.2 million individuals and 650,000 registered financial advisors, 7% were disciplined for misconduct and that median payment to customers in compensation was $40,000, One third …
Economists talk about tradeoffs, say between equity and growth, and everyone seems to assume that every policy has to have a trade-off, or downside, of some sort. But it is possible to find policies that promote two policies at once that don’t have disagreeable results. Larry Summers, now a professor at Harvard, in an article …
