This has been bugging me for DAYS... What is the economic term for:

When you have one thing, it's pretty great and you're happy. But as you can have more of that thing available to you, each succeeding thing you can get doesn't make you as happy as the previous one did.

A bottle of Scotch?

The Law of Diminishing Returns

gtho - thanks. But will you believe that the law came to me just as I noticed someone had replied to this thread? I hadn't even opened it! Must be some sort of psychic connection somehow

gtho - law of diminishing returns is wrong

What she needs is " law of diminishing utility "

***EDIT***

Law of diminishing returns (also called "law of variable proportions") states that the returns (or output) you get from a particular combination of factor inputs increases at an increasing rate, then increases at a decreasing rate, then decreases.

In simple terms, It just states that you can't produce the entire world requirement of wheat in one field no matter what how seeds, fertilisers or money you put in (assuming that we are NOT increasing the land)

...Or diminshing utility

Thanks, ace (and gtho)!