Isn’t money fungible?

I thought it was, but when couched in legalese and banking jargon, what was intended to be a fungible commodity can be 'unfunged'.

From here: When news broke that Wells Fargo, recipient of $25 billion in bailout money, was planning a lavish Las Vegas retreat for its top employees, lawmakers howled. The bank canceled the trip but took out full-page newspaper advertisements defending such trips. ''The funds to pay for recognition events such as these do not come from the government,'' the ad read. ''They come from our profits.''Does that mean the bank tracks government money and profits separately? No.

Company spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said Wells Fargo doesn't distinguish between bailout money and other revenue. What the newspaper ad meant, she said, is that the bank didn't need the bailout money to pay its routine operating expenses -- including employee trips like the one to Las Vegas.

Another example of 'unfungible' aspects of money here: Ruth Madoff said she owns a Manhattan apartment, $45 million in bonds and $17 million in cash that are “unrelated” to an alleged Ponzi scheme by her husband, Bernard Madoff. ... Madoff’s lawyers claim “only Ruth Madoff has a beneficial ownership” to a Manhattan apartment, about $45 million in municipal bonds on deposit at Cohmad Securities Corp., and approximately $17 million in cash in another account. Ruth Madoff says these assets are “unrelated” to the alleged fraud, citing her husband’s lawyer.

More money - Happy/Sad: Three views over time

Below are three views on whether more money equals more happiness. It is interesting to note that the views have been downgraded from no correlation between the two to lots of.
I am not too sure if the latest finding (released this month) that bolsters the correlation between the two is an unconscious or conscious bias introduced by the institute that put out the paper: An institute that is famous for churning out fresh MBAs who typically start at over $100K a year - Wharton.

View I from about 30 years ago: Economic growth did not necessarily lead to more satisfaction:

People in poor countries, not surprisingly, did become happier once they could afford basic necessities. But beyond that, further gains simply seemed to reset the bar. To put it in today’s terms, owning an iPod doesn’t make you happier, because you then want an iPod Touch. Relative income — how much you make compared with others around you — mattered far more than absolute income, Mr. Easterlin wrote.

View II: From a couple of years back which states that more money may not equate to more happiness.

Once a country has filled its larders there is no point in that nation becoming richer. The hippies, the Greens, the road protesters, the down-shifters, the slow-food movement – all are having their quiet revenge. Surveys show that the industrialized nations have not become happier over time. Random samples of UK citizens today report the same degree of psychological wellbeing and satisfaction with their lives as did their (poorer) parents and grandparents. In the US, happiness has fallen over time. White American females are markedly less happy than were their mothers.


View III: Prevailing view (published last week in the Times quoting a paper published at Wharton): More money does indeed make one more happier.

The “Easterlin Paradox” suggests that there is no link between the level of economic development of a society and average levels of happiness. We establish a clear positive link between GDP and average levels of subjective well-being across countries with no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being. Moreover, we show that this relationship is consistent with the relationship between income and happiness within countries, suggesting a minimal role for relative income comparisons as drivers of happiness.

Money buying friends

Money can buy friends apparently - according to this advertisement announcing a new texting plan from a major cellphone company. I found it in today's Times...
Is that all they think of friendships? Maybe it is all utilitarinism.
On a side note, an interesting thread about offering money to get friends on Facebook had popped up here on Slashdot a while back.


This research team from University of London came up with a happiness scale, from one (utterly miserable) to seven (euphoric). They then came up with a formula which they believe can calculate how much extra money the average person would have to earn every year to move up the happiness scale.
So, for instance, living with a loved one was found to bring the same amount of satisfaction as being given an $160,500 annual raise. Marriage brings the equivalent amount of happiness as a $100,000 a year raise, while having an active social life – meeting friends several times a week – is the equivalent of a $120,000 annual salary increase.