Slate loves telling you why what you believe is wrong—that's their thing. It is kinda fun, so we know why they do it, but after a while it must get as boring to write as it is to read. That's why we weren't surprised to find that the site today posted Spend It While You Can, a snail-mailed letter from grandpa on a site otherwise made up of smart-alecky e-mails from an Ivy League sophomore.

Get this: "It turns out that money can buy you happiness—but young people get a lot more happiness out of their dollars than old people do." Wow! So you mean to tell us that when people get older, they find less joy in buying heroin and fancy sinks or whatever? Gee, thanks, Slate—truly enlightening. Though this revelation might have been more impressive had it not already been the main point of about a million billion poems, movies, songs, plays, old sayings, comic strips, preachy t-shirts and deathbed confessions throughout history.

But oh, we forgot: Slate gave their story credence with the help of an economist, something hundreds of years of untrustworthy anecdotal evidence never did. Says Slate: "It's not every day an economics paper gives you an excuse to spend your money and live life to the fullest. I'd say seize the moment." Can't you tell from that sentence alone how pleased with themselves they are? Jesus.

We'd say if you look to economics papers to tell you how to live your life, you're already dead. Spend foolishly.