Celebrate: We’re rich beyond our dreams!

Pass the sherry, ol' chum!

Do you ever feel like the man has got his boot on your neck? That you are slaving away at a job you loathe in order to pay bills that you just can’t get ahead of? That it is more and more difficult to keep mouths fed? That there is just no hope? No way to move forward?

Of course not! You, ol’ chum, are a surfer!

And a new study by two Oxford economists, published in Forbes, details the value of waves and how much we pay for them. Shall we read a section ol’ chum?

Waves, it turns out, are no drop in the ocean. High-quality waves, the authors estimate, generate economic activity worth $50 billion per year globally. That’s around $20m every year for each place with good surf. And when surfers discover a great new spot, economic growth in the area can rise by up to three percentage points for the next five years. Good waves also help turn the tide of rural poverty by encouraging the poor to stream into towns to join the surfing economy.

Ol’ chum? Are you still reading or have you retired to the bridge room? Cribbage? Are you drinking the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti or the Domaine Leflaive Montrachet? The Chateau Lafite?

Good choice, ol’ chum!