News Stories at Odds: Happiness is Contagious While Thousands are Out of Work

Odd juxtaposition of news stories today.

On the one hand there's a bleak story saying that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the most in 34 years.

Then there's another story about a new study which found that happiness is contagious. ("Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself, the study found," the Los Angeles Times reported. "A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor's sister's friend can give you a 5.6% boost.")

So where does that leave us?