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r_nebblesworthII (2)

"Affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines well-being." Avner Offer is the professor of economic history at the University of Oxford, and he is interested in the well-being of people and families in liberal market societies. His latest work, The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950, is an empirical socioeconomic history of the effects that liberal and neo-liberal economics has had on happiness, relationships, and social welfare. Specifically, he argues that Reaganism/Thatcherism catapulted forward the ability to produce new goods and services, and to create the desire for them, far ahead of society's ability to cope. Reagan and Thatcher "smashed the family to pieces;" the result of market liberalism is societies of ever-more dissatisfied, atomized, unhappy communities of dual-worker consumerist families.
posted by r_nebblesworthII on Nov 19, 2010 - 51 comments

Diabetes is overwhelmingly the most common cause of male impotence in the developed world. Men and women are designed to move, and when we do not, our immobility reduces us in every respect. A long, enjoyably rambling piece about urbanization, faux survivalist sailors, self-sufficiency, and the problems caused by the creeping spread of the modern Western diet and lifestyle. Also, the difference between Canadian and Afghani guts.
posted by r_nebblesworthII on Nov 17, 2010 - 85 comments

How the other half top quintile lives... Coldwell Banker has released the first Coldwell Banker(R) Luxury Index, a "study conducted in August 2004 of U.S. luxury homeowners -- those owning homes valued at $1 million or more -- concerning their attitudes, preferences and purchasing behavior related to luxury goods and services." You might be interested to discover that 61% of those surveyed stated recent increases in interest rates would have no impact on their luxury item purchases.
posted by Irontom on Nov 16, 2004 - 8 comments