Wendelin and the limit of happiness

A few days ago I blogged about Wendelin Wiedeking’s funny name. That was out of character for me, since my normal reason for blogging about this newly-fired CEO of Porsche would have been the fact that he earned just under 200 000 euros per day in 2007. That’s every single day of the year! (And you thought it was superior craftsmanship that made Porsches expensive.)

Yet I didn’t pounce on him. Maybe it’s because I feel sorry for Wendelin, since he is obviously under the impression that more money will make him happy. Some sort of scientists have recently come up with the magic number 10,000 dollars per person and year as the limit at which personal happiness stops growing. If you make less than 10,000 dollars a year then yes, more money will make you happier. But above that line, the increase stops. Making 11,000 a year will not make you noticably happier than when you were making 10,000. (To compare, Wendelin made 11,800 dollars an hour during every single hour of 2007.)

An encouraging sign for Wendelin’s happiness, however, is the fact that he will give some of his money away to charity, even though his choices of charities are bizarre. He is setting up a 25-million-euro fund for “socially fair development at all Porsche sites”, and is giving 500,000 euros to support “elderly and suffering journalists” in Baden-Württemberg and Lower Saxony. What’s the fascinating backstory to that last decision, do you think?

P.S. The man rumoured to take over as CEO of Porsche is named Michael Macht. Also a very good name. No Wendelin Wiedeking, but that would be asking too much.