Funny man Austan Goolsbee is Obama's Top Economic Adviser

Take a look at US Pres Barrack Obama's new top economic adviser. The Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers is "funniest celebrity" and "stand-up economist" Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago.

This weekend, he did an interview with the ABC's Christiane Amanpour which you can watch here.

And here he is on Jon Stewart's Daily Show explaining the theory behind Obama's policies.

He performed reasonably well, even better than most in the Colbert Report.

Now here he is courtesy of Politico.com doing his stand-up routine awhile back. With poverty in America set to hit 15% (the same as in the 1960s when LBJ launched the "War on Poverty" or the "Fair Deal" and with unemployment still above 9% and with appetite for new stimulus gone sour in the US Congress, perhaps injecting some humour and laughter into the debate would be the best medicine for policymakers and the public at large.

The Price of Happiness

1. The Wealth Report  says that $75,000 is the minimum income threshold that produces happiness in the US based on a study principally led by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel winning behavioural economist.
2. Real Time Economics goes further by translating this figure on a city-by-city basis.
3. While we are on the subject, this article from Time tells us why drinkers live longer.
4. Finally, this post from Slate shows how inequality has grown in the US over the past 30 years.