The petroleum economy is producing affluence for few while causing severe impoverishment of many.
In the 1960's, an era of relative affluence produced year-round contracts and performing arts complexes like Lincoln Center.
For instance, energy efficiency makes people better off economically, and the environmental Kuznets Curve holds that more affluence produces greater demand for pollution regulation, which will result in less use of dirty fuels such as coal and thereby cut carbon emissions.
In the great tradition of reality television, the jobs they have are vaguely in real estate (or just vague), which seems appropriate, given that the genre produces a fantasy of affluence rivaled by the once booming Florida housing market.
"We recognized that Asia's economic growth over the last decade had produced a new category of affluence that did not conform to the industry's narrow definition of what it means to be wealthy," he said.
In this period of economic uncertainty, he says, there is a deepening fear that the country will not be able to produce a long period of stable affluence like the one that followed World War II.
And these are populated largely by baby boomers who are entering peak earning years and "producing an era of demographically driven affluence".
We wear the trendiest fashions, drive the best cars industry can produce and project an image of incredible affluence-cool people living life to the hilt.
Sixty-seven percent of Americans with household discretionary income of $100,000 or more said they were planning to cut back on personal travel, according to the Annual Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America, produced by American Express Publishing Corporation and Harrison Group.
"Analyses of survey data have repeatedly shown that, once a society reaches a particular level of affluence, further increases in material wealth produce very limited changes in people's self-reported happiness".
