Do you sincerely wish to be rich

This is a question that deserves careful thought. I suspect that most readers of Quadrant long ago decided in favour of other objectives, certainly other primary objectives. Power, influence, scholarly reputation, friendships, a happy family, an interesting and balanced set of activities, are all ways to achieve a satisfying life. Many people would claim to have scored well on more than one of these objectives, yet economics, that dismal science, reminds us that many of life's dilemmas consist of deciding between conflicting objectives, of allocating scarce resources (including time, the scarcest of all) to our goals.