Idea Mashup/Showdown!!

From: HowStuffWorks.com article "How the Five Day Weekend Works: Keynes and the Leisure Society"

"In "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," Keynes posits that by 2030, developed societies will be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, will characterize national lifestyles. He uses a realistic estimate for growth -- 2 percent per year -- and pointed out that with that growth the "capital equipment" in the world would increase seven and a half times. With a world as wealthy as this, he said, "We shall do more things for ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day [sic], only too glad to have small duties and tasks and routines" [source: Keynes].

While Keynes was correct in his estimate of increasing world wealth, he missed the mark with his prediction of leisure time. With fewer than 23 years before Keynes' 100-year forecast is up, today economists wonder why we don't have the life of leisure Keynes envisioned. 

In a HowStuffWorks interview, Cornell University economist Robert Frank explained his belief that Keynes' failing was his underestimation of the value of relative needs. Frank has contributed to "Revisiting Keynes," a book of economic essays exploring where Keynes went wrong in his prediction. In contrast to basic needs (like food and health care), relative needs are goods and services that people don't need, but want, and often because of rivalry with others. That could be why you feel that you need a bigger SUV than your neighbor or a better television than your brother."

• I've had a quote on my facebook profile for about three years, from a girl I met at L'Abri.  It goes, ""I'd rather put all my energy into being good at being poor rather than putting my energy into becoming rich."

• There's a hard-core capitalist idea out there that recessions are a good thing for an economy because it acts like a forest fire - clearing out the undergrowth and weaker organisms to make way for the stronger, better trees/companies to thrive.
  
• I've kept a TIMES article up as a tab on my Chrome browser for about two months now.  My dad sent it to me, saying that it looks at cultural history much in the way that I like to, looking through multiple disciplines to try to track any kind of notable pattern.  The article is called "The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?" - Unfortunately, i'm really bad at reading/appreciating things that do what I love better than I do. So, at the time of writing this blog, I still haven't finished the article, mostly out of jealousy.