Financial Times FT.com

No laughing matter

By Pilita Clark

Published: July 21 2006 16:16 | Last updated: July 21 2006 16:31

Who do you think would be the happier of these two people: Bob, an intellectual 35-year-old single, athletic, handsome white man earning $100,000 in sunny California who spends his spare time reading and going to museums? Or Mary, a sociable 65-year-old plain, black, overweight woman on dialysis, who spends most of her free time on church activities and lives with her husband in a snowy part of New York state on a joint income of $40,000?

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