in the west and in asia, people own more and spend more than thier parent's generation, yet researchers claim that overall levels of happiness have remained even. while north americans have twice as much spending power as they did in the 1950s, people are today ten times likely to be depressed. Japan and korea have become some of wealthiest counties in the world, but they also have the third and fourth highest rates of suicide respectively, while counties with some of the highrest rates of poverty often have the lowest rates of suicide. More and more poeple question the belief that wealth really make our lives fundamentally better. Indeed, the blind pursuit of being rich and purchasing more and more products may actually be doing the reverse.