A Wealth of Well Being

Not too long ago I got a message on LinkedIn from the account of Meir Statman of UC Santa Clara, a pretty reputable behavioral economist, plugging his new book, A Wealth of Well Being. I was impressed that a senior academic like that would be doing direct sales so energetically and proactively, though I assumed he had engaged a graduate student or something like that to actually do the pushing and I replied to the message saying that. No no, he responded, this is actually me, Professor Statman.

So I bought the book and started reading. The book promises to provide the most many-faceted expostulation of the holistic financial planning value proposition that so many are working towards these days. And indeed, Professor Statman has thought about people's financial lives from many angles, I daresay all of them, perhaps, and he has done so in an exceptionally thoughtful and respectful manner. The author comes across as one who has read broadly and been to talks at all the departments around the academy and thought about how all of it fits into people's lives financial and otherwise. Of about 350 pages, about 1/3 is devoted to end notes.

The problem is that it is all a little underdigested. I'm sure it all fits together fairly neatly in Professor Statman's head and he probably can spin it out well orally. But as a written text it's a little too much data, too little thought. It is, indeed, too respectful of it's source material. The good professor would do better to throw away the pieces, step forward and present us with a whole.

I sympathize, of course. As someone who rolls out experience day after day, week after week, in three paragraph chunks, I sense that I am long overdue for some synthesis. I am, however, like Jim Sinegal, working. Honestly, I am.