You Can Never Be Too Rich, Say Economists

Well, everybody, it appears that capitalism is the answer to all problems! Okay, well, not really, but a new economic analysis authored by Betsey Stevenson and Just Wolfers has found one basic, straightforward conclusion: More money makes you happier, and you can never have too much of it. The old belief, that you can in fact have too much money, is challenged by this new, groundbreaking analysis.

Instead of reaching a “satiation point” with your income, i.e. the point where your money becomes your worst enemy instead of best friend, this study found that households that become wealthier become happier, with no satiation point beyond which everyone starts maniacally accusing their siblings of trying to steal the family fortune on a coke high after snorting their inheritance up their noses. When the analysis was applied to entire countries, researchers found that wealthier countries (in terms of GDP per capita) were also happier when they were richer.

So what does this mean? Well, to begin with, it means kind of the fucking obvious: If you have more money, you won’t be as consumed with anxiety-addled thoughts about how you can afford to pay for college, your kid, your house, your cable, your extravagant weekly Saturday brunch and the drunk online shopping you do after your extravagant weekly Saturday brunch. Basically, you’re life is the opposite of a dramatic credit card debt commercial.

But the major takeaway from the study isn’t that money makes you happy. It’s that money makes you infinitely happy, so your fourth Birkin will make you happier even though you already have three, your four thousandth froyo will make you happier even though you’ve eaten 3,999 already, etc. In conclusion: We should print billions of dollars and hand them out to everyone so everyone can be happy and eat gourmet cupcakes and yay, because that’s how the economy works.*