Here’s one for the economics nerds: YouNotSneaky has a long
post, with more than a few Hamiltonian multipliers and reciprocals of the rate
of intertemporal substitution, on whether
people buy more stuff because they want to increase their status. (Short
answer: no.) It makes for an interesting read, and is written in a most lively
fashion.
But also: How would an economist explain the existence of this blog
entry in the first place? The key here is that the author is anonymous, and
therefore cannot get much obvious benefit from it. Economists blogging I can
easily understand; economists blogging anonymously is harder.