Richard Layard's 'Economics and Happiness'

1. The evidence is that how happy and satisfied we are is due to us working together for the benefit of the society, and not for our selfish personal gains.

2. The author is trying to show that people are beginning to place lesser emphasis on religion and are more concerned about economics instead. Economists are now considered as people who have great power and supremacy over others and the age of religion has been replaced by the age of commerce.

3. It is to show the irony that Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics when he actually studies hedonistic psychology, since economics and psychology are largely unrelated.

4. The rich are called the 'polluter' because the amount of wealth that they have causes tension between the different income groups, harming the society. However, they do not gain much from being richer than the average person.

5. Modern society is in constant pursuit for happiness, however the route seems long and never-ending as people are often caught in the working rat race and forever pushing themselves to work harder.

6. The writer wants to provide his personal opinion to the fact that politicians are now being detested, so he placed his opinion in parentheses. He feels that the detest shown to these politicians is unreasoned and unfair.

Fang Ting, Bryan cai, Junling, Min Jia 09S03K