Research published today has revealed that money is much more useful for making people happy than was previously thought.
Despite the popularity of books like The Spirit Level and Happiness, and a large body of recent studies across the developing world suggesting that economic performance does not in fact correlate with wellbeing or life satisfaction, new research has emerged that being poor is actually rubbish after all.
The researchers behind these new findings, who comprised a cross-sectional representative sample of British pub patrons, said in unison: “I don’t care what your evidence says, I’d like a flatscreen TV as big as Frank’s and I’m not going to be happy until I get one.”
They added: “That’s a nice watch, how did you afford that on a researcher’s salary then, eh? Eh?”
The debate about money and happiness has run since the early 1960s, when influential sociologists The Beatles released the findings of their “Can’t Buy Me Love” project. Despite early scepticism, their follow-up work, “All You Need Is Love” was thought to have finally established, in empirical terms, that money could not buy a single thing that anyone needs.
However, the backlash against these findings was surprisingly swift, and by the early 1980s, a new wave of happiness researchers including Professor Harry Enfield of Saturday Night Polytechnic, and economic polemicists The Flying Lizards, had established, once again, that money had some inherent uses in achieving our personal and professional goals. By the 1990s, both academic and public opinion were divided, with some commentators arguing that the strong economic upswing was the source of the ‘feelgood factor’, whilst others arguing that as long as there were people in the world who had more than them, they would never, ever shut up about it.
Wellbeing campaigners treated today’s announcements with scepticism, saying: “I know I live in a big house and have five types of balsamic vinegar, but I’m still not happy, so this must be wrong.”
David Cameron was too happy to comment, whilst Ed Miliband simply replied: “I didn’t go to Eton, will you vote for me now?”
In light of these findings, happiness can now be purchased from the Mindapples Shop, for a limited time only. See below for details.
