Social Econ Blog

While, I am well aware that such manipulations take place. It is still surprising to see how much one can do to change one's appearance.

I am curious, though, what the real effects of this stuff are. Does the fact that magazines, television, etc. are populated with people who are "artificially" pretty encourage lots of people to invest more than they would otherwise trying to "keep up"? If so, does the economy gain as a result of these efforts or is this all part of an massively inefficient system? That is, what benefits offset these potentially growing costs?