I've got a new song lyric assignment up over at the Abba to Zeppelin site.

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Assignment: Janis Joplin wants a Mercedes Benz in order to keep up with her friends. Economist Robert Frank writes about how people seek status in a game of constantly trying to outdo each other. He has advocated highly progressive taxes in order to reduce the ability of people to seek status by earning more money than others. What do you think of this idea? Assuming people aren’t able to achieve high status by making a lot of money, what other means, good and bad, do you think people might choose to achieve status among their peers?