More on Wealth and Happiness

After pointing out the New York Times' coverage of a study on happiness and wealth, the last two installments from the Freaknonomics blog here and here. More from the Economist here. The Economist notes:

It may not be the wealth that makes us happy, but rather being successful. Living in rich county may not be so important so much as being somewhere that provides opportunities to improve your financial well being.

Including a funny point by a commenter:

Natural selection, I would think, would have prevented any linkage between laziness and happiness.

Personally, I tend to agree with the view that money used properly can buy a certain level of happiness. It doesn't help though that the media and certain politicians push the view that if you're rich you've done something wrong and should be punished (Donald Luskin's Blog) when the economics would suggest quite the opposite is true.