Why January makes us want to scream
Blue Monday and Oxfamâs comparison wealth of billionaires and the poor âthe stories that come around every year.
There are two things that you can be sure of in January and both of them make us want to scream. Firstly, Oxfam put out their âx number of billionaires hold the same wealth as the poorest half of the worldâ stat. But as weâve said in the past the comparison doesnât make sense. The bottom half can include people with a pretty comfortable income but just because they have lots of debt they has negative wealth and on the other hand there could be people with barely any income â living off less than $1.25 a day - who have a small asset, such as a bike or a shack who are way up the wealth distribution.
The second head-banger is âBlue Mondayâ, the formula that supposedly tells us that the third Monday in January is when people are at their saddest. Itâs like a virus that has infected the media. Each year it appears on different press releases promoting different products and the press lap it up. But there is no science to it at all. The formula is a stupid invention dreamt up to promote a TV channel in 1995 and it refuses to die.
In this programme we revisit both these issues to see if we can put them to rest once and for all.
(Image: Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' 1893. No copyright / in the Public Domain)
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- Mon 23 Jan 2017 02:50GMT±«Óătv World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Mon 23 Jan 2017 03:50GMT±«Óătv World Service Online, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview only
- Mon 23 Jan 2017 04:50GMT±«Óătv World Service East Asia & South Asia only
- Mon 23 Jan 2017 05:50GMT±«Óătv World Service Australasia
- Mon 23 Jan 2017 07:50GMT±«Óătv World Service East and Southern Africa & Europe and the Middle East only