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Researchers Say Happiness Costs $75K
SpuriousLogic writes "Does happiness rise with income? In one of the more scientific attempts to answer that question, researchers from Princeton have put a price on happiness. It's about $75,000 in income a year. They found that not having enough money definitely causes emotional pain and unhappiness. But, after reaching an income of about $75,000 per year, money can't buy happiness. More money can, however, help people view their lives as successful or better. The study found that people's evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences — their feelings — did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one."
You don't sound very happy. So this appears to be pretty accurate.
Happiness is something you should have the liberty to pursue. It's not something which should be given to people by the government.
Why not? Assuming that an external entity (government or otherwise) could grant one "happiness" (caveats about actual ability of doing so and different individuals' definitions of same being applied, etc.), why would you not want this external entity to do so? Is your Puritan streak so strong that you would deny your fellow citizens happiness because they were not the ones providing it for themselves? Would their happiness somehow be suspect because they were not the ones providing the means for the same? Do you also deny the right of children to be happy because their parents provide the resources for them to be happy rather than their own labors (I hear that coal mining is good for this)? If the external entity were a religion, with no cost to you, would you still deny these people their "unearned happiness"?
The main reason that I ask is because your opinion seems to be based on a knee-jerk anti-government bias rather than a sound philosophical reasoning about this issue. It makes you sound rather mean-spirited too, because your latter comments sound as if you derive much of your happiness from a belief that there is an inherent moral superiority in those who can provide enough income for their own happiness over those who cannot - you, being able to do so, are morally superior to those who cannot and, thus, you are happier due to your feeling of moral superiority. To this, I will only say that it is a small man who derives his happiness from the misfortune of others, just as it is a small man who envies those who have more than him.
That is all.
He didn't specify in his original post he was disabled. I also know of at least 3 "disabled" people in my own little world who are just bullshitting and don't want to work, and continue to draw benefits from the government despite being fully capable of finding and keeping gainful employment.
And even having said that, I don't think euthanasia is a solution for this particular person. You, I'd make an exception for though.
What loopholes? What loopholes? You can have a corporation anywhere in the world and have dividends paid to you anywhere else in the world. However at some point there is no actual incentive to reside in US or even to be a US citizen even to do business in US, it doesn't have any advantage, when in fact most of the goods consumed in US are imported. What's the advantage living in US, where the trade imbalance and dollar printing will eventually cause a huge drop in quality of life?
It's going to happen, it only makes sense to move both, business and pleasure outside and move semi or fully permanently to Asia.
There is no such thing as lack of demand, there is only lack of production. You know what the US gov't is doing all the time? It's giving people fake money, it's borrowing and printing and borrowing more and setting interest rates to nothing. That creates false demand where there SHOULD NOT BE demand because people are jobless and not producing anything. You know what is actually causing lack of demand? Lack of jobs, lack of production.
If you have no production and people are unemployed, they have nothing to exchange for the goods that they consume and the credit will disappear eventually and they'll be stuck with NO money and NO goods. What they need is not what gov't can do: productive private sector jobs in manufacturing and production, that produces STUFF that can be traded to other countries for the STUFF that other countries are giving US on credit.
Money is nothing, if money meant anything then US Fed could print all the money and give it to everybody. They could give every single US resident a billion dollars. Much good the money will do when the dollar is destroyed by hyper inflation. But it's going to happen anyway because t-bills are all short term and the world is realizing US can't pay back, so it's not too far away that the creditors decide not to roll t-bills over, but will want their principal back.
And there is nothing that gov't can do, it can only print USD to buy t-bills back, which will undermine everybody who is USD holder.
The CORRECT way of handling this problem is for the gov't to be HONEST and declare bankruptcy today. Today, they have to declare bankruptcy today, so that creditors can get in line and get not 100% of investment + interest, but maybe 10% back on a liquidation sale. There is nothing else gov't can do.
But we know that US gov't will not do what is right but tough, they will do what is wrong but easy, and so they will continue printing and borrowing and various forms of stimulus spending until there is an actual collapse of the dollar.
And all that because the gov't is standing in the way of production with regulations/taxes/subsidies/bailouts/stimulus/borrowing/printing/setting 0% interest rates/being involved in economy.
It's a crisis and in crisis something will give, if the gov't won't give and won't do what's right, the economy will give and die. I think that's going to be the outcome, I believe the US economy is terminal.
It is also likely that UK will follow with some marginal European countries, the Euro probably will be destroyed but strong European countries like Germany will go back to their own currency and Asia will have to write off the debt they are holding for all these bankrupt nations and will bounce back stronger once it stops subsidizing the non-productive parts of the world and finally allows its currency to rise and will start consuming and quality of life in Asia will go up and up, while in the countries with no production, no economies, no currency the quality will be destroyed, and knowing the gov'ts there, probably some form of very unpleasant dictatorship will follow. Obviously wars are also a possibility, they always are in such times.
You can't handle the truth.