Consider that all the wealth of the world can't buy a liquid more pleasurable than water after intense thirst. Few objects bring more thrill than a recovered wallet (or laptop) lost on a train.
The essence of life is some volatility.
This is from Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Facebook page link)
The basis of modern economics is the cognition that it is precisely the disparity in the value attached to the objects exchanged that results in their being exchanged. People buy and sell only because they appraise the things given up less than those received. Thus the notion of a measurement of value is vain. An act of exchange is neither preceded nor accompanied by any process which could be called a measuring of value. An individual may attach the same value to two things; but then no exchange can result.
This is from the great Ludwig von Mises from his magnum opus Human Action Chapter XI Section 2 p.204. (hat tip Mises Blog)
This is in accord to yesterday’s quote of the day where Professor Deirdre McCloskey bashed the notion of using mathematical formalism to measure “happiness”.
What the economists could measure pretty easily, though, was the money you have for buying sandwiches or paying the rent. Income is not your happiness and doubling it will not make you twice as happy—but it does measure your capability for action.
That’s from a lengthy critique, by Professor and author Deirdre McCloskey, on experts who fallaciously attempt to “engineer a happy society”
