Today's Wall Street Journal includes a very interesting story about a legal fight between Parker Brothers, the makers of the game "Monopoly," and the inventor of a game called "Anti-Monopoly" (click here). "Ralph Anspach, an 83-year-old economics professor, spent decades locked in a real-life battle with Monopoly and its corporate owners. The campaign dented his finances, sent him on a nationwide trek for intelligence and sparked a legal case that reached the steps of the Supreme Court. . . .Prof. Anspach's woes began with a real-life trademark fight for the right to sell his own game, called Anti-Monopoly. Along the way, he says he helped to publicize the little-known origins of the classic American game."

Tags: General Interest, Intellectual Property

From the Wall Street Journal: "In the broadest, most-comprehensive survey yet of how occupation affects happiness, business owners outrank 10 other occupational groups in overall well-being, based on the landmark survey of 100,826 working adults set for release today [September 15, 2009]. Defined as self-employed store or factory owners, plumbers and so on, business owners surpassed 10 other occupational groups on a composite measure of six criteria of contentment, including emotional and physical health, job satisfaction, healthy behavior, access to basic needs and self-reports of overall life quality." Control and flexibility are cited as keys to job satisfaction. (Click here and here.)

Tags: General Interest

This Wall Street Journal article, about the poor state of the economy in Ireland, reminds me of my junior year in college (the 1985-86 academic year), when I studied at Trinity College Dublin. It seemed like every Irish student I knew planned to look for work in another country, because there wasn’t any at home.

Tags: General Interest