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Paul Romer's ideas on how best to develop a sustainable, creative and fulfilling future (for all)

“Groups of people always find it difficult to change the rules, even when other rules would clearly be better. Charter cities—dozens of them, perhaps even hundreds—could be the skunkworks that bring systemic change to entire nations. Ultimately, they could give the billions of people who will soon move to cities the chance to experiment with, and opt into, rules that let them achieve their full potential.” —Paul Romer (Harvard Business Review)"

and

"For sale: happiness comes with a $40,000 price tag"

It seems we're a fairly shallow lot:

But it wasn't income in absolute terms that was important. The happiest people tended to be those earning more than others in their peer group; while the more dissatisfied were earning less. So the desire to keep up with the Joneses - or more specifically, to be the Joneses - has a very real effect on happiness.

"The name sabbath (the seventh day) is a reference to the biblical injunction - mainly honoured in the breach - that the Jews practice ''jubilee''. Every 50th year (the year following the passing of seven times seven years), slaves were to be freed, people were to be released from their debts and land returned to its original owners.

So sabbath economics involves an ''ethic of regular and systematic wealth and power redistribution''. You can see why this is an uncomfortable topic (for me as much as anyone else).