Name: The price of happiness
Uploaded: 2008-12-17T01:00:00Z
Duration: 14 min 18 s
Description: Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world's most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.

Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world's most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.

The price of happiness

Chasing the world's most expensive products, from a $160 Kobe beef steak to a $105,000 bottle of wine, often leads to disappointment. Even blind taste tests put fancy olive oil below the humble store brand, and extravagant hotel suites or designer jeans rarely deliver unique joy. A study found people enjoyed the same wine more when told it was pricier, revealing that expectation shapes pleasure as much as reality. The pursuit of luxury, it seems, is driven more by belief and status than by real, lasting happiness.