March 9th Blog Post

This week in class we discussed the idea of money and how it impacts our lives as Americans, both socially and economically. Early in the week we discussed how money impacts the world of sports, in particular we saw how racial trends show that while African Americans make up the majority of players, ownership of the teams and organizations is overwhelmingly white as we saw in the facilitators article (http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/12093538/the-year-racism-sport). Through discussion we singled out reason for this may be that traditionally it has been common place for a white majority to run the business side of many organizations and for other racial minorities to do the daily busy work or be responsible for the production of capital for the larger business. Later in the week we dug into the finer details of neoliberalistic society and how it affects us as Americans. One of the big ideas we tried to dissect in class was what the idea of the American dream is. In the following discussion we could not put a concrete definition of what the "American Dream" is for everyone. The conclusion we came to is that the American Dream means something different to every person. This means that to one person it could mean being able to pay bills, buy food, put a roof over their head and clothes on their back, and be financially independent . To others the American dream may mean amassing a great deal of wealth, building a legacy for themselves, making sure their kids are financially taken care of, and being able to buy experiences that make them happy. The conclusion we came to as a class from this discussion was that because the American Dream means so many different things to everybody in the U.S. these differences could be a possible reason why there is a great divide in opinion on how our country should operate economically and politically. The objection or debate that arose in class was how much happiness we can get solely from money. Though their was many different opinions in the exact numerical amount that we start to become less satisfied with how much money we have, it was a generally agreed on idea that we reach a point where happiness is not monetary, it is something we achieve through social means such as a successful marriage, a job that fulfills you and makes you happy, or having kids to look forward to spending time with.

Comparison of Utility of Materialistic purchases vs. the purchase of Experiences 

This graph show how people viewed how happy materialistic purchases made people versus how happy using money to purchase life experiences made people. Interestingly enough before the person received the object or experience there is an overwhelming feeling that the materialistic purchase will bring much more satisfaction than a experience. For example people thought buying a new car would make them much more happy than going skydiving or going on a vacation. Though as you can see both short term and long term after getting the the object/experience the experience was bringing much more satisfaction than the material good was, even though the experience is over and they could still be using the material good they purchased.

The article put out by PBS backs the idea that buying experiences is a large factor in being "happy" (http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/blogs/can-money-really-buy-happiness). In this way the author says that money can buy "happiness". The key idea to understand here is that it is not actually the money itself that makes one happy, it is the result of what can be experienced because of the money. When looking at the idea of happiness from this point view the conclusion that we drew from class discussion is almost spot on, that having a certain amount of money will make you happy to a point, that it cannot bring one all aspects of happiness because those come from social interactions and a sense of self purpose. A good way to describe it is that making a certain amount of money gives you a foundation of happiness but it is up to you to build the rest of the house through finding and doing what makes you happy, whether that be building a successful marriage, finding a job or hobby you love, or raising children. This is what the modern American Dream entails.