would I write more loving blog posts if I had less money?

A Wall Street Journal column is titled "You're Not Super Rich? You Lucked Out." It says that instead of envying/overthrowing that one-ten thousandth of the country which earns-- well, let's put it more neutrally-- receives as much money as the brokest fifth, we should feel bad for them. They eat at the best restaurants all the time therefore they have nothing, culinarily speaking, to which to aspire. Plus Science has shown that they're unhappy.

[W]hen high-income earners are asked about their emotions on a periodic basis throughout the workday, they don't report being any happier -- but they are more likely to say they are anxious or angry.

Who is most anxious when their kids get sick-- the CEO or one of the 92% of private sector workers who isn't unionized, has a week of vacation time a year, no health insurance because Bush vetoed that S chip thing-- sorry, nevermind, I hate children too. But let us ask,

Does the homo sapien tend to experience more happiness when vacationing on her personal island or at her parents' raised ranch in Rhode Island? (Note that Rhode Island is not an island.)

The column concludes that "what matters is doing something that you enjoy and that gives you a sense of purpose."

In the factory days manpower mattered. Rockefeller needed people to show up at his factories and do boring stuff all day. So we got Horatio Alger stories where "hard work" was the virtue. Now the tycoons don't need us standing at the machines anymore. They just need us to pay them a lot of interest. So live small, we hear. Pay each other via taxes (it's not like corporations get audited anymore) to do "purposeful" public interest jobs and then pass your salary on up to us via subprime loan repayments.

The exception to this trend, of course, is young lawyers. The ruling class needs us to fight regulations, people injured by their products, and each other. So, like the factory workers of yore, no one tells us that law firm work is enjoyable (at least, no one's told me that). Instead we're encouraged to grind away for grades, test scores, grades again, "writing" competitions and finally document review because if we don't we're passing up opportunities. Snubbing the meritocracy. Don't you believe in meritocracy? If enjoyment is the new proletarian virtue then exhaustion is ours.

Money will continue to be the virtue of the ruling class, notwithstanding its scientific correlation to happiness.