Peter Jackson column

Feb 15 2007 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. And now we are told that a preliminary first step, paving the way for madness, is to make people affluent.

This at any rate, is the thesis of Oliver James, author of the recently published and much talked about book Affluenza.

In a nutshell, affluenza is the name Mr Oliver gives to the social virus affecting large parts of the Western World, and which involves people placing a high value on acquiring money and goods, impressing the neighbours and striving to be famous. Once infected with this virus, victims have greater susceptibility to the commonest mental illnesses - depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder.

Furthermore, it is the Anglo-Saxon countries with their low-tax, free market model where this plague is most rampant, whereas in much of Europe people are much happier, particularly the high tax paying and non-materialistic Danes.

On the one hand, the revelation that money can't buy you happiness leaves me pretty underwhelmed. The Church has been saying much the same thing for the past two millennia, along with most other religions and sundry philosophers. I suspect Mr James will be no more successful in convincing us of the error of our ways than they have been. In our heart of hearts we suspect the truth lies more with Sophie Tucker who said: "I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better."

But I also find Mr James' thesis slightly irritating, in so far as it comes across as a thinly veiled attack on the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model and one which is not well substantiated. In reaching his conclusions, Oliver James travelled to seven countries. This must mean he missed out a lot, and, one of these, I suspect, was Finland.The Finns, like the Danes, have a typical Nordic model of high social spending and taxes to support it. And, Finland has Europe's second highest suicide rate - beaten only by the recently communist Hungarians.

Share price falls 12.8%

THE City slashed 12.8% from the market value of Carr's Milling after yesterday's profit warning.

The shares fell from a recent high of 642.5p to close down 82.5p yesterday to 560p.

Darren Shirley, an analyst at broker Shore Capital, downgraded its profits forecast by 32% to £5m in 2007 and from £8.3 to £6.3m in the wake of the announcement.

Analysts at Investec, the company's broker, said: "We expect trading to bounce back next year."