 Better Than Money While the screaming about sequestration cuts grows louder, and some of our media colleagues obsesses about the latest developments in the Boston Marathon bombing, another group of media colleagues keep confusing President Obama for the Green Lantern. Those issues might normally frustrate us, since they're all happening at the same moment in time. Yet, we're generally happy and even calm today.
It's not like we've won the lottery, though that would likely improve our happiness. As economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers confirmed recently, money really can buy you happiness. Or, as Dylan Matthews more accurately notes, blindness to problems.
For a large number of people around the world, that exchange of a loss of clarity and liberty for a bit of temporary financial security is as common a transaction as buying something with a check card is for most Americans.
In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has been generally enjoying the fruits of that kind of trade for most of the last decade. Karzai recently even felt comfortable enough to admit the CIA has, at times, brought him bags of cash, so he'd be more likely to make the decisions that U.S. interests prefer.
The fact is, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a pretty good life right now, even considering his position as the President of Afghanistan. Whatever he wants, he can generally buy with large amounts of money given to him by the U.S. government, through the CIA or other channels. We're willing to bet Karzai could even get Jimmy Johns to deliver to the Presidential Palace in Kabul.
What might surprise you is that as much as Americans crave financial security, recent surveys suggest that Americans still prioritize their civil liberties over security... |
