Talk:Med Jones

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Hi Guys, can someone help me reorganize the page to comply with the layout guidelines, please? Thanks! Thank you Magioladitis, Yobot and War wizard90 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.31.104.247 (talk) 17:47, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

This website seems a stud. Most of the info is not correctly cited and very suspicious. As an economist I have never heard of Med Jones (before he added me in Linkedin last week). He claims to have "predicted the crises" but there is no proof of this. Most of the documents in which he shows up are very low-brow (an appendix in a memo to a congressman). I would ask some other people to inquire about this and perhaps pull this down. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.130.85.135 (talk) 15:38, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

This negative and misleading comment by 131.130.85.135 was posted almost 2 years ago, with no one responding to it. Also one can see from the revision history of the page that there was some vandalism of the text and the links. It appears that Wikipedia does not maintain its pages and no one is monitoring the comments. Maybe an official from IIM should manage this page and respond to such sabotage. The unsigned request by the anonymous Economist to “bring down” the page appears a bit personal and his comment is deliberately misleading. His reference to the “memo” to a congressman in an appendix, is actually a full PhD research report aimed at replacing the current US government GDP economic indicator with a new economic development indicator and that this report is authored by two PhD's at Harvard University and that the appendix that he refers to (see page 81 in the following link) lists the timeline of main economic developments that influenced their proposal. Notice in that timeline how Mr. Jones’ contribution to the development of their proposal is listed in 2006 along other important developments, including the later more famous contributions of the Stiglitz Commission in 2008 and the OECD post- Stiglitz Commission in 2011. The paper can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20150701192803/https://www.hks.harvard.edu/content/download/67149/1241406/version/1/file/PAE+Beachy_Zorn_2012.pdf .If one visits the profile of Jones at https://www.medjones.com specifically the happiness economics and investment strategy pages, one can see that there are many hyperlinks to papers and citations by professors and researchers at Columbia, Oxford, MIT, HEC France, and some strategists at multi-billion dollar investment firms among others. The anonymous economist who wants to bring the page down calls such references as low-brow (low intellect) and that if he did not hear about someone or something before, it means it is not true. He must be a big shot economist who is all knowing. The motive behind his unsigned comment is the one the is "very suspicious", to use his own words that he uses to describe others. Nat.Account (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:26, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Clearly, he is recruiting others to delete the profile. It appears he wants to prevent the visibility of another economist’s work. The public IP address 131.130.85.135 that the anonymous economist used to make the comment belong to Vienna University. It could be a visiting or local academic. I think such behavior may violate academic ethics and Wikipedia guidelines on malicious comments and editors’ sensitivity to biographical pages to prevent harm to the reputation of a living person.Jay-11 (talk) 14:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I’m an Austrian economist and I participate in some Wikipedia editing, I did not sign this comment, because I do not want to be part of this personal conflict between two economists, but I do have an opinion on such behaviour. I agree with previous responses to the person behind 131.130.85.135 comment. I doubt that he is an Austrian academic, this is uncommon behaviour in Austrian academia. This appears to be a highly political economist. Certainly, he is not a disinterested person. Whatever information he wants deleted must be important to him or her. Maybe he is jealous or maybe he published a competing paper and he is competing for visibility or academic credit. The language of the unsigned disparaging comment suggests that it might be personal. 80.110.32.84 (talk) 13:38, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

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Hello fellow Wikipedians, There should be some deep investigation on this page for false information, or at the very least, verification that is not manufactured and/or managed via anonymous profiles by the subject. With some investigation, you can find that the allegations about predicting the economic crisis and being the originator of Gross National Happiness are put forth by Med Jones alone, and cannot be verified:

If you go to https://archive.org/web/ and paste in a URL, you can see when it was first indexed by the Internet Archive (not a guarantee, but a pretty good indicator of when it was first available for the public to read), and how often it’s changed: 

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/gross-national-happiness-economics-gnh-index-gnh-2.htm tells me that the current GNH page on the International Institute of Management site was created around the same time as Med Jones started editing Wikipedia. But then: https://web.archive.org/web/20131111142335/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/grossnationalhappinessgnh.htm shows that there was a previous GNH page there, which was maintained from 2010-2013, and then no longer found in 2015. Looking at the most recent version of that page: https://web.archive.org/web/20131111142335/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/grossnationalhappinessgnh.htm I’ve tried following a few of the “Med Jones GNH …” links that go to sits other than iim-edu.org, and so far all the ones that have worked at all have been to work by *other authors* that don’t even seem to quote him!

https://web.archive.org/web/20140715000000*/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/index.htm tells me that the institute’s page with his bio has been around since 2010, but I can also see individual snapshots. The first time the acronym “GNH” appeared on it seems to have been in Feb 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150207213810/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/index.htm and the page only started promoting him as “widely quoted on the economics of happiness” in August 2014: https://web.archive.org/web/20140829030024/http://www.iim-edu.org/associates/medjones/index.htm The previous version says nothing about that, though it does link to the shady GNH page that lists lot of studies not by him.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laura.musikanski (talk) 02:29, 25 September 2019 (UTC)laura musikanski Laura.musikanski (talk • contribs) 02:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)   Adding here also: Note that while this page has multiple citations, there are not citations from independent and verifiable sources that support the allegations for predicting the 2008 economic crisis before the crisis (seems rather important, no?) and there are no citations for creating the Gross National Happiness Index that are from independent and verifiable sources not manufactured by Med Jones or his website that are prior to 2008, when Bhutan first measured GHN with its Gross National Happiness Index - also seems rather important one would thing. Laura.musikanski (talk) 02:28, 25 September 2019 (UTC)laura musikanski

It appears that Laura Musikanski and likely some of her associates or paid freelancers have been involved in the prior deletions and latest vandalisms from US, Poland and other places. Laura claims she is Executive Director and Co-Founder of "The Happiness Initiative" which appears to be associated with or biased in favor of competing researchers at the World Happiness Report (WHR) where spoke at sponsored conferences and she promotes their work. One can tell from her prior edits (the latest misleading edit to the section of GNH that she has been trying for years to suppress the fact that International Institute of Management pioneered the first GNH/GNW Index in 2004-2005 and influenced many government initiatives (See Goa, Thailand, Belgium and other links referenced in the deleted section of the Wikipedia Page). IIM GNH & GNW Index was published and cited before the first publishing of World Happiness Report (WHR) in 2011-2012.

I ask Laura to state here (please do not evade this request, if she discussed IIM GNW/GNW Index and/or this Wikipedia page with the WHR authors or associates and what was their feedback, and if her association with them influenced her action to sabotage Wikipedia page and write those defamatory comments. I do not know the facts yet, but, it seems at worst she is being misled by one of the competing researchers, at best she is uninformed and trying to impress her allies / sponsors and acting as a politician rather than an academic researcher who should adheres to academic ethics and integrity.

The "shady" links that she refers to (and selectively omits from her comments) include reputable citations and live hyperlinks to research reports books and articles from Oxford, MIT, Harvard University and a report to the US congress and other professors from major universities and government officials, books and statements. She needs be held responsible for making such unfounded defamatory claims. Wikipedia did a good job deleting and reverting prior vandalism edits. But she keeps coming back and doing it again. But I have to check with IIM legal advisors about what legal course of action, if she continues her attempts damage the reputation a live person. Wikipedia has clear legal warning about making unfounded claims and about vandalism.

In the past I was told to ignore her, because the last thing anyone wants is for some misinformed/misguided person who claims to want to spread happiness to end up causing so much unhappiness for herself and others involved. Freedom of expression is one thing, malicious commentary and attempt to damage the reputation of other researchers is another very serious thing. It seems she has been trying for years to sabotage this Wikipedia page under different accounts / IP and freelancers or associates. Laura left me no choice but to respond.

Laura, before responding to this reply, I suggest you read research papers about the fabrication of history of GNH by Professor Lauchlan Munro at the University of Ottawa, he knows Bhutan very well and he was there on an international development mission. His research paper with Asian Affairs "Where did Bhutan’s gross national happiness come from? The origins of an invented tradition" Can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03068374.2015.1128681

One can also Google the paper to find open access versions and you will find many reputable journals publishing it. She can also read another research article on "Harvard Boys Do Russia" https://www.jstor.org/stable/26393817 then she make can make her own conclusion on the nature of the political entities and people she is associated with. Also I suggest to research IIM website and the people involved to see their professional caliber before making defamatory claims.

As of this comment, Laura is being given the benefit of the doubt (as being not fully informed), I hope Laura and her associates will stop trying to cause damage to the reputation of other researchers and create unnecessary unhappiness for all involved - Erin @ IIM. ~2026-21657-8 (talk) 07:13, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Laura falsely suggests that if a page does not exist on archive.org with a certain time stamp, it means it did not exist on the Internet before. Archive.org does not crawl all the webpages of all websites. Many times it relies on manual user submission for historical record. Also she appears to have a problem with the fact that websites get updated and URLs change over the years. She claims to be an Engineer (she should research the facts and know better before making such red herring arguments). Another problem with her misleading arguments is that she pretends not to know that a paper can exist in a draft version (working paper) and that it cannot later can be expanded and updated. IIM’s GNW/GNW Index first published draft white paper was in MS Word document in 2004 and in 2005 HTML (online) format and later expanded and updated version in 2006, then the corrections about the history of GNH & FAQ sections where added in later years. The GNH Index paper of 2006 was widely cited. There are tens of reputable independent researcher from top universities who cite the IIM GNH index 2006 paper referring the institute or authors or the website well before, before the First UN World Happiness Report in 2012 and her own paper in 2014. IIM 2006 paper citations can be found partially on Google Scholar and be verified on Wikipedia page of the deleted GNH section (she and her connected associated delete the section for obvious reasons). You can also find many citations with live hyperlinks at the author’s website https://www.medjones.com/happinesseconomics/

No one in good faith would claim the the paper was not cited by independent sources.

Yet Laura tries to cast doubts her bias and motives is obvious. As some who published research paper and claims to be a lawyer she knows better not to have such a reckless disregard for the truth. The use of words "shady" and "manufactured" against a professional to discredit his work and damage his reputation by suggesting dishonesty might be basis for defamation action. Especially when she does not do her research and is selective about what she uses to argue a point to hurt what she perceives as a competition. As for her claim that Bhutan published the first GNH index, she might want to consider reading an open access version of this Professor’s paper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297728476_Where_did_Bhutan's_gross_national_happiness_come_from_The_origins_of_an_invented_tradition The original Bhutan happiness philosophy (there was no index before) was only a phrase used for a political propaganda and genocide https://www.masslive.com/westernmass/2025/03/dark-reality-hides-behind-bhutans-gross-national-happiness-viewpoint.html

https://www.masslive.com/westernmass/2025/03/dark-reality-hides-behind-bhutans-gross-national-happiness-viewpoint.html

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/04/eu-should-press-bhutan-to-free-political-prisoners/

https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/02/why-bhutan-s-gross-national-happiness-joke

Laura: Rather than attacking competition to help yourself and political allies at your “Happiness Alliance”, if you are a genuinely a good and a neutral person, maybe you would consider more reading and activism for truth and human rights than promoting yourself and your political allies at the UN happiness Report at expense of the work rights of researchers.

Again, I resisted responding to you in this manner, your choice of words did not leave any space for courtesy. I hope you will take the same time and effort you put to attack IIM GNH Index and its author over the years to advocate for the happiness of Bhutanese refugees and victims of genocide. Your response and what you chose to focus on will reveal to everyone if you are a decent person or pretending to be one. ~2026-21547-5 (talk) 12:01, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

As for Laura's claim that "There are no citations from independent and verifiable sources" that Med Jones predicted the crisis of 2008. Her edits (and likely her allied or paid editors) claiming that they are "summarizing" or organizing the page by reducing and removing reliable sources (e.g. below sources), which suggests an intentional and activist organized misinformation targeting campaign.

For example she ignores available online evidence (see links below) that can be found with a basic research on Google and prior versions of Wikipedia page (that her allied editors keep removing). A 2007 interview with Reuters in which Med Jones warned about the subprime mortgages and the potential contagion to the markets (Sell off) and the economic impact stating the "worst thing could happen to any economy is the loss of confidence" – This warning is at the heart of the great recession of 2008. Other researcher validated the loss of confidence after the subprime crisis as a critical factor for market crash and the following recession.

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/stocks-to-watch-bad-home-loans-cpi-idUSN09251166/

Her biased editors not only removed the above reference but also other references where the Federal Reserve and mainstream economists failed to see the size and the impact of the housing bubble problem on the broader economy and claimed that the subprime mortgage impact was limited to the real estate sector. In fact, Ben Bernanke the Chairman of the Fed, mainstream economist including Nobel Laureates failed to see crisis, an some denied that it could happen. https://fortune.com/2011/02/01/bernankes-biggest-blunders/ A basic search on google will reveal such facts - Again such fact was edited out for obvious reasons.

Additional reliable sources

Rational Investing: The Subtleties of Asset Management - Published by Columbia University and Authored by Chief Strategist of a $74 Asset management fund and a professor from Paris.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0DvEDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Rational+Investing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4-8XapdXcAhVHs1kKHUVCDmcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Med%20Jones

On US News and World Report – Another citation of prediction accuracy

"Then there is Med Jones, the president of the International Institute of Management... Although Jones is less known, he turned out to be the most accurate in predicting many of the downturn's details"

https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-smarter-mutual-fund-investor/2011/10/06/does-stock-forecasting-work

Book: Bubbles, Booms and Busts by Donald, PhD - The Rise and Fall of Financial Markets (Page 314) authored by Donald Rapp, PhD cites "..A prescient prediction” https://books.google.com/books?id=eTNpBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Bubbles,+Booms+and+Busts&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9n8DApdXcAhXnqlkKHR4LCVcQ6AEIJzAA#v=snippet&q=Yones

Forbes Article

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sharding/2014/12/12/congress-has-guaranteed-the-secular-bear-market-is-not-over/#5e1a0f6d7ba8

For additional sample of references with online links to independent sources you can see

https://www.medjones.com/economic-forecasting-investment-strategy.htm

Apparently Laura &/or connected editors keep deleting the above (and other) citations from the Wikipedia page

Laura, you should not make false and defamatory claims about other researchers. You claim to be researcher and a lawyer, you should know better that your acts to disparage, defame and harm other professionals and their source of living make it worse for you, proves a malicious intent and could result in legal liabilities

I ask a senior Wikipedia editor to restore the original citations in prior versions of the page and include above reliable sources and prevent Laura Musikanski and her associated editors from vandalizing the page to mislead the public. Erin2026 (talk) 20:09, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Further Update: Laura Musikanski falsely suggest that IIM’s gross national happiness (GNH) Index appeared first on archive.org in sometime between 2010-2015 while the Bhutan GNH Index was published in 2008. She is using archive.org argument to advocate that Karma Ura from Bhutan and the UN World Happiness Report pioneered the first happiness / wellbeing econometric measurement index and suggesting no evidence that IIM published the first GNH Index. I found a copy of IIM GNH index on archive.org on Feb 2007 - It clearly pre-dates the claimed 2008 authorship of Bhutan GNH Index. https://web.archive.org/web/20070829155451/http://www.iim-edu.org/grossnationalhappiness/index.htm

I agree with the earlier talk-response to Laura - Archive.org does not automatically index the entire WWW or entire sites and many times someone manually archives a page so it can be indexed. So a page can be published online indexed and found on regular search engines, even before being indexed on archive.org for first time. Laura, not only did you ignored the above archive.org snapshot dates, you also ignored other reputable researchers who cited IIM working papers of 2005 and 2006, then you actively tried to sabotage the visibility of Wikipedia page of the original author of the first GNH Index. Your own argument of using archive.org timestamped snapshots proved that IIM pioneered and published the first GNH Index and that it was accessible to the public and the authors at WHR which raises questions about academic and professional misconduct.

Karma Ura and Jeffrey Sachs who published / edited the first World Happiness Report on 2012, and later annual versions. They used the UN resources and its global outreach, resulting in overshadowing the original author and mislead the public about originality of the core of their work. Some academics use such political positions to gain unfair advantage over other authors. The United Nations has a sovereign legal immunity (it is hard to sue). So a calculating academic with political connections can use such multi-national bodies to promote their academic standing at the expense of the original authors. At this time, I’m not claiming this was the case, but if they knew of the original author and chose not to cite his work, then they should be subject to academic and professional misconduct.

I looked at the history of Wikipedia edits, it appears IIM does not actively manage Wikipedia page and most sabotaging edits (including Laura's defamatory statements on this talk page have gone unanswered for years). Laura and likely her linked folks at the Happiness Alliance were successful at causing a lot of damage to the visibility of IIM first GNH index, by elevating their profile at Wikipedia and google Indexing to get far more citations to overshadow the original authorship of the first GNH Index by IIM. The number of citations is a valued metric in establishing authority, winning speaking fees, research funding, and even academic awards, like the Nobel Prize, which very likely that Karma Ura and Jeffery Sachs are hoping to win. It appears to me the entire Bhutan GNH Index campaign at the United Nations WHR is a political operation to cover the genocidal crimes against the Bhutanese of different ethnic origin and who are now refuges in the US, India and other countries.

At best Laura is a well-intentioned misled incompetent researcher, at worst she is actively trying to mislead via malicious misinformation campaign. She also claims to be an activist, so I second the earlier talk-response questions, Laura, did you discuss IIM GNH Index authorship with anyone at the United Nations’ World Happiness Report? Did they influence you, encourage or mislead you? Did you ask them if they knew about IIM GNH Index before they published the WHR in 2012 and later versions? Did they pay you or sponsor your organization or events to promote their work? Did they pay for a speaking fees at "happiness" events? As self-proclaimed researchers, did you contact IIM to ask for a proof of publication dates, before you went on a public activist sabotage campaign? If not, it raises questions about your original intentions. Any decent researcher / person would first contact the authors in question to get the facts, before embarrassing themselves and others. You started a vicious public campaign and you forced a public response. न्याय !

While the UN might have legal immunity, I do not think the individuals have legal or academic immunity. I informed IIM and this page is now subject to further investigation. Academic standards obligate an author or a group of authors to cite earlier very similar work, If Laura and the authors at WHR published a paper and knowingly did not cite IIM GNH Index, then the authors are subject to plagiarism accusation (taking credit for someone else’s earlier intellectual contribution). Initially, some authors might make a mistake and do a poor research, but if later informed of the earlier authorship, but did not correct their paper or cite the original author in later publication, then it is fair to consider the plagiarism to be intentional misconduct and subject to legal and professional penalties. I urge IIM and academics who read this page to report this behavior to academic integrity offices at the UN, the universities of the authors, and the journals where these authors published their papers, including Karma Ura, Jeffery Sachs and co-authors of the first the World Happiness Report and their promoter Laura Musikanski. I would be interested to see the result of the academic misconduct.

Laura, I can understand the power of personal and professional network bias created by your association with Karma Ura and the folks at the United Nations WHR, but if you have any academic integrity or any personal decency, you should respond here by retracting your earlier false and misleading statements and apologize for defaming the original author and stop your attempts at sabotaging his Wikipedia page. Promoting your "Happiness Alliance" at the expense of the original author of the first GNH Index is unethical. Through your activism, you aided in misleading the public and other academics, and if you want to avoid a further escalation, you can use the same activist resources and spirit to spread the truth of who is the original author of the first GNH Index and how Bhutan GNH masks a human rights violation by the Bhutanese government. Whether you were misled by the Bhutan political operations and their associates at the World Happiness Report or whether you were a willing participant in such behavior, it will be revealed. Please do not evade the questions about the knowledge and association with the folks at the UN WHR. Erin2026 (talk) 08:26, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

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