Researchers Say Happiness Costs $75K 772
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."
Money does not buy happiness, but ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Money does not buy happiness, but lack of money makes a huge down payment on unhappiness.
Too much money also means no trust. (Score:2, Insightful)
I would say that $75,000 is a good estimate because the more money you have the less trust you usually have along with it. At $75,000 you have just enough money to maintain your friends, and family relations, and to be able to trust your spouse. When you start to get over this amount your friendships may begin to change as some friends will start to envy you or get jealous, you may not be able to trust your family members anymore or your spouse, as it gets into the $100,000+ and $200,000+ and $500,000+ eventually you do reach a point where you simply can't trust anybody anymore. Your spouse might have a life insurance policy on you and be waiting patiently for you to die. Your brothers and sisters might be fighting each other to win favor with you. Your friendships might be completely non-existent as none of these new friends might be real.
And if you aren't married and you don't have a strong family structure you may not even have that. What you'd have then is people dating you and you never knowing what their intentions are, who they are, or if they are trying to set you up, extort you, or marry you and try to take your money. You also wont be able to trust your friends either unless those friends make the same kind of money you are making because your poor friends could easily be bribed or payed off by your rich friends to spy on you.
Ultimately there is no increase to happiness with money beyond a certain amount because as money increases trust decreases. As trust decreases for most people stress increases. As stress increases for most people happiness decreases, unless they've had the kind of life experiences to allow them to have the emotional and psychological toolkit to manage stress of this sort.
This is why more money = more problems after a certain level. This is why getting to the top is usually more fun than being at the top.Trust is not a commodity, you cannot buy it or sell it. Love is not a commodity, you cannot buy and sell it.
Where do you live? (Score:3, Insightful)
The amount of money that you require to be "happy" depends on where you live and what the lifestyles of the people around you are.
Where you live sets the baseline cost of living, and visible lifestyles determine your expectations.
Double what you are earning (Score:5, Insightful)
75K would be about double the national average.
Also this 75k number would completely depend on where you are. 75K is poverty in NYC while in most Podunks 75K would make you near royalty.
even rich people hate life (Score:3, Insightful)
few months ago the NY Times did a breakdown of a $250,000 salary in NYC. after the insane "progressive" taxes, the mortgage and HOA fees of living on the upper east side or UWS, the nanny or the crazy elite day care there is very little left.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:3, Insightful)
Happy? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've said it once, and I'll say it again: MONEY CAN'T BUY YOU HAPPINESS. You just need someone to love.
Lack of debt makes for happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how you put a $ figure on it. For me, it was lack of plastic debt. I have one CC and it it paid off weekly, yeah, weekly. My main debt is my house, followed by a car; whose sale price was less than 30% my gross. I do my best to keep monthlies to a minimum, meaning paid for cell plan, my internet, and my TV.
I set aside multiple savings accounts with automatic $50 deductions or more, after a while you lose track of them until tax time but the its nice to know you have money out there. So besides paying down debt create an automatic deposit into a savings account, preferably not at the same back your checking is at. Then just file it away in the back of your mind. Never touch it unless you lost all other means of having money for shelter and food.
You can be debt free on 20K if you live right. That is where most people get tripped up. They refuse to live within their means and the blame others (if not society). I can't count the number of people I work with who have notes or leases on cars that cost half it not more than half their gross pay. Throw in $100 a month for Smart phone plans; as in many who have one are not; and its easy to see why people aren't happy, they are too busy going broke to impress people, people who generally don't care. I certainly don't care what car you park in the lot, let alone I doubt anyone seeing your shiny 5 series/E-class/A6 really gives a flip when they likely will pass another dozen of the same that day.
Don't live to impress others with material wealth.
Re:cheap shot (Score:2, Insightful)
Wealthy Social Pathologists (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:even rich people hate life (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is mostly their fault. I dislike taxes as much as anyone else, and I'm not usre our current system is exactly fair ... but the HOA fees "of living on the upper east side or UWS," the nanny, and the elite day care (and the elite private elementary schools that are $15k/yr or whatever, etc) are their choice.
Also, the five $60k+ cars eat into their income, too.
I'm glad we have a free country where people can make their own decisions, but being rich does not mean you necessarily make good money decisions. Seems like a lot of rich people have ended up poor because they didn't know how to manage their own riches and they spent it all, gambled it, invested it stupidly, or whatever.
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Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:4, Insightful)
This got rated up to 4? People, please apply for jobs at the CIA, you pass the paranoia qualification.
Here's a helpful tip when talking to friends who maybe don't have the same number of digits in their bank account balances: shut the fuck up and do not discuss your income. Holy shit, how hard is it. I've talked with friends about their favorite sexual positions with their wives, but talking about income? Absolutely fucking off limits.
By the way, life gets better once you finally graduate high school. Just thought I'd throw out some advice which is relevant to you.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
I get only $8088 a year in income from SSI.
Of course, I also get food stamps, and make use of Section 8 rent subsidies, so my effective income is probably a little higher.
I'm still well below the 75k mark, but then again I'm not paying in sweat to get it either.
I even have $1400 in credit available, thanks to a couple of credit cards.
I'm fairly happy.
Some people are happy living in prison, most aren't. What you don't mention is how old you are. If you are 80 years old and can't do anything then living like that is not going to make you miserable but if you are in the prime of your life and you can't do anything, living on SSI is a virtual prison.
Unless of course you don't want to do anything?
Anyway I assume your post in a joke but if it's not then please describe what in your life is making you happy? Do you have kids? a spouse? a family? How on earth do you pay rent with only $8000?
But this is America .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did they go by how much a person makes or how much a person spends?
Re:Double what you are earning (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
How old are you? If you're over 55, congratulations. If you're under 55, get a job you lazy bastard.
I used to ride the Metro Blue Line to work. I saw so many young, otherwise healthy people on the train with nothing but free time who were complaining about how SSI wasn't enough and how they hate their free Section 8 housing. But they would never go get a job, because then they'd lose "their benefits". For way too many people in this society, SSI, SDI and Section 8 are a free ticket to a life paid for by everyone else.
Re:But this is America .... (Score:3, Insightful)
They went by salary, using the usual "family of four" criterion.
They didn't subtract taxes or scale for localized cost-of-living.
As science, it's bollocks. As politics, it's solid gold.
Re:cheap shot (Score:2, Insightful)
Impossible. Happiness is something you should have the liberty to pursue. It's not something which should be given to people by the government. The government should provide ample opportunity and resources for people to have the option to fight or compete for happiness.
The reality we have today is that for a majority of people unless you are born to make $75k no amount of hard work or effort will allow you to reach that goal unless you break the law. It should not be so difficult for ordinary people to make $75k. The fact that so few make this much should show us not that more people need to make it, but that more people should have the ability to try to make it and be given the opportunity to do so if they have skills, talent, ambition.
If everyone had the ability to make $75k a year, $75k a year would not be "worth" as much. Obvious inflation is obvious.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, you must know mostly well-off people! Most families I know are not making $75k, and no single people I know are making that much, and nobody feels anything close to poor. A household income of $75k is, according to some census stats, 73rd percentile: i.e. 27% of people make more, and 73% make less. If being in the richest 27% of Americans makes you feel poor, you must have a pretty inflated notion of "middle class"...
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
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Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're making others pay in sweat in order to finance your lifestyle? You're living on the dole, and that makes you happy? Well done, sir. You are a HUGE part of the problem, but as long as YOU'RE happy, that makes everything okay.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:2, Insightful)
How old are you? If you're over 55, congratulations. If you're under 55, get a job you lazy bastard.
I used to ride the Metro Blue Line to work. I saw so many young, otherwise healthy people on the train with nothing but free time who were complaining about how SSI wasn't enough and how they hate their free Section 8 housing. But they would never go get a job, because then they'd lose "their benefits". For way too many people in this society, SSI, SDI and Section 8 are a free ticket to a life paid for by everyone else.
Well be realistic who is going to be dumb enough to take a job at McDonalds so they can lose their healthcare, get kicked out of their apartment, lose all those benefits?
Now on the other hand if they are offered a job that actually gave more benefits than section 8 and SSI and they wont take it then you can call them lazy bastards, fools, etc. I would say SSI is better than the alternative if there are no jobs, I'd say SSI is better than being criminal and going to prison.
Now if there were no SSI then they'd all be in prison and that would cost more money than if they do what they do now. Basically the same argument could be made about prison, people break the law so they could live off everyone else? Or because theres no jobs? Ultimately unless there are jobs you can choose only to spend more on section 8 or spend more building prisons, hiring cops, and judges, lawyers, etc.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Universal health care is a good thing when costs are under control. It's not socialist. Get over it.
Re:cheap shot (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, taking back what was stolen from you is not stealing.
With that attitude, you can justify any action. Why steal it back? Why not just arrest these fat cats and lock them in prison? We could call our local sheriff's department and have them lock up any CEO or entrepreneur that makes... what? over 250K/yr? That should be fair, right. After all, anyone who is wealthy stole the money anyway, right? No one making that much money could have actually earned through sacrifice, hard work, risk taking and brilliant thinking.
Of course, we could take seize all their assets and redistribute them to whoever they stole it from. Just curious though, who would get Michael Dell's assets? Seems to me that the money Dell has made came from people who willingly purchased products and services that Dell provides. Stealing is taking stuff away from people against their will. Who did Dell steal from? Other than the obvious thieves, Enron execs, Bernie Madhoff, etc, who have the founders of the companies that make stuff we all use, like iPods, software, dishwashers stolen from? How do we get the money back to the victims if we don't know who they are?
Re:cheap shot (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that while the President has a majority in Congress on paper, reality is much different. It would be a lot more obvious that he hasn't got a majority were we under a Parliamentary system. ...
The only thing that could realistically screw it up for them is if the Tea party steals too many votes or the American people collectively grow a spine.
Wow. I'm actually a bit dismayed this post got modded insightful. All you're doing is calling a large portion of the population spineless and brainless for having a different opinion than yourself.
I think it's a perfectly valid point of view to believe a government should protect an environment where it's most productive members are enabled to enrich themselves and society as a whole. I also think it's perfectly valid to believe a government's largest expenditures should not be income transfer programs. I also think it's quite realistic to expect to strike a balance where society's poorest members can be helped in times of need without bankrupting the entire nation.
It amazes me how so-called "open minded" people can be so intolerant of differing opinions.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:3, Insightful)
How does one's bill point to how much one makes? All the bills I get in the mail are my utility and cell phone bills. I suppose if one is throwing away bank statements and/or credit card bills. However, if one is throwing away those documents, most companies these days offer the option to stop wasting money on paper and postage and will just e-mail it.
I could see it being obvious if the guy down the street has some hot new car every year, walks around in a fur coat, and has a bottle of Dom Pérignon in his hand frequently. Just because someone is making a ton of money, doesn't mean they have to flaunt it.
The only person that should know how much one makes, is their spouse and HR. With the exception of executives that work for a publicly traded company, nobody in the company should be letting that information loose. It's foolish to tell anyone how much one makes. And as for the spouse, part of finding the right person is making sure they understand that information is not be given out.
My uncle worked for a typical number of years. He had three kids, always drove some POS car, and had reasonable living arrangements for his family. Most people would assume he was like a typical American that was a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy. Reality is, he retired with over a million in the bank. He managed his money well with good investments, spending it appropriately on things that were needed and even did nice family vacations, and didn't spend it on stuff that wasn't needed. He still manages his money well till this day. The money he packed away paid for a nice house and regular living expenses. Him and his wife do little side jobs here and there and that money is used to go on vacations. AFAIK, nobody is asking them for money or even thinking poorly of them. If anything for me, they're an inspiration of properly stewarding one's money.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:2, Insightful)
I always wonder what's going on when people say things like this. Making $35k, one pays about $3k in Federal taxes. After minimal state taxes, one nets about $2600/month. One should put 10-15% into a retirement account. $2300. An employer subsidized medical plan will cost at least $50/month. $2250 less a $2000 budget is a $250 savings month-to-month. To me, this seems like one is a single car accident away from losing everything; how could one handle medical bills plus a month off of work?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Realize you're about to die like everyone else and enjoy your last few years.
Go volunteer a few weeks in an oncology ward before you make that statement.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:3, Insightful)
To show a flaw in your logic requires that you first provide some logic. Handwaving, smokescreens, envy, and assumptions aren't logic.
Re:cheap shot (Score:2, Insightful)
Whopping great tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor != enabling productive members of society to enrich all of us, sorry
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:5, Insightful)
shut the fuck up and do not discuss your income
Soooo... what you're saying is that you agree with him? Can't trust your friends eh?
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in the short term. In the long-term, as income distribution levelled, it might tend back toward the pre-hike level or below, but that would also correspond to less poverty and demand for poverty support programs, so you'd see lower spending to acheive the same policy goals as well as seeing lower revenues.
Yes, because the degree to which the wealthiest 1% out-earn the rest of the population has gone up since then more than the tax rates they pay have gone down. Its not surprising that that has occurred, since lower tax rates on the richest have a compounded effect over time on their wealth.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
With that attitude, you can justify any action. Why steal it back? Why not just arrest these fat cats and lock them in prison? We could call our local sheriff's department and have them lock up any CEO or entrepreneur that makes... what? over 250K/yr? That should be fair, right. After all, anyone who is wealthy stole the money anyway, right? No one making that much money could have actually earned through sacrifice, hard work, risk taking and brilliant thinking.
If Libertarians can say that even minimal contribution to the commonweal via taxation is theft, why can't the Socialist say that the minimization of contribution via taxation is theft from the commonweal? I am sorry that the Libertarians made the discourse so vehement rather than rational, but it was their school who promoted this emotional meme to the point that rational discourse became impossible.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:1, Insightful)
Show me where trust and money correlate because I believe the correlation is increased money equals decreased trust.
Your problem is that you are stating "I would say that $75,000 is a good estimate because the more money you have the less trust you usually have along with it."
That implies causation (having money causes lack of trust). While they may be correlated, you have provided precisely zero evidence that they are causal, and zero evidence they are causal in the direction you state.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would add the number of people you accept to care for can go up with increased income. When I passed an amount I felt secure with I accepted increased responsibility for helping parents and siblings. That extra load seems to be a wash emotionally: there is some extra worry balanced by increased happiness at being able to help.
FWIW, if you are helping parents, siblings, children, relatives, friends, or just anyone in general I have a three tips for you.
1) Every loan you make has a good possibility of becoming a "gift" if they can't or won't pay you back. Don't loan more than you would be able to give someone -- especially without collateral or a legally binding agreement. If someone's inability to payback a loan would cause you financial hardship or would terminate your relationship with them, you are better off not giving them the money.
2) Don't help out to easily or too often. People need to develop self-reliance and if you help out anytime there is a minor issue you will actually be hurting the person in the long run by taking away their responsibility for themselves.
3) Don't let someone just stay on your "couch" for a week unless you are willing to basically take care of someone for an unspecified amount of time while they stay in your house without contributing and consume your food and other resources. Almost all "surprise guest" situations end up as "unhappily mooching roommate" until they are kicked out.
Re:cheap shot (Score:4, Insightful)
I also think it's perfectly valid to believe a government's largest expenditures should not be income transfer programs.
In a very real sense, all government expenditures are income transfer payments.
Re:Mathmatics of dissatisfaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you now unable to get a database driven web development job? I mean, it both paid more and you liked it more ... why not just go back?
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course. I only favor raising taxes on the ultra rich.
Re:Mathmatics of dissatisfaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to be hurtful, but I'm baffled by the notion that anyone could look at our society and not see that there was an obvious oversupply of lawyers. That's why there are all the jokes (and non-jokes) about them being leeches, etc.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you disabled? Is there anything legitimately keeping you from getting a job? If not, what makes you think you have the right to live off of everyone's taxes?
It's simple. Say he does get a job selling drugs or as a prostitute, your tax dollars would then pay the vice cop who would arrest him, the judge who would handle the trial, his lawyer, the prosecutor, and then you the juror would have to waste your time hearing the case and making a decision.
It seems cheaper to just pay for SSI, the alternatives if we want there to be an alternative is to have full employment and how would you want to guarantee that everyone who wants a job can have one? It's not as simple of a problem of "But my tax dollars pay for these people to live for free!", in reality your tax dollars go to waste on a lot more unimportant stuff than this, and the tax dollars you spend on this lowers the crime rate and actually saves you money long term, unless you want the alternative where we legalize all the stuff that is currently illegal for cosmetic concerns, like drugs, prostitution, gambling and stuff of this sort.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we have a million toys? The latest gadgets and gizmo's? No, but we are comfortable, my wife teases me about having as many computers as we do, our kids watch far more TV than we do, and PBSkids looks just fine on a non HD screen. On the other hand we are able to help others in need and have a good sized emergency fund, and a stable of investments.
How did we do it? Well first off, when we bought our house we didn't look to get the biggest McMansion in town stretching out our income to the absolute maximum we could afford, we found something that fit our needs and had room to grow our family within our plans. Oh, and my wife (an Attorney by education and pre-marriage employment) is by her choice a stay at home mom. We do all this on one income.
About 10 years ago someone told me I'd need a minimum of 50k a year to comfortably raise a family. I'm still not quite to that point but doing fine. Would I like more? Sure, but we are comfortable, satisfied and happy.
Your comprehension of what is needed is way off.
Re:Mathmatics of dissatisfaction (Score:4, Insightful)
*Disclaimer* I know I'll get modded to oblivion for this, but I feel it needs to be said.
Considering the fact that it appears to be only say 1% of lawsuits are actually justified and lawyers charge an insane amount (despite the acknowledged over supply of lawyers), I think I speak for most of society when I say I don't feel sorry for you in the slightest.
The overwhelming majority of lawyers go into it because they want to make a lot of money by financially raping people who've done nothing wrong. There's a reason most people despise lawyers and refer to them as things like leeches and bloodsuckers.
Re:So... you're a socialist? (Score:3, Insightful)
this is the problem... you have to label everyone to determine whether you agree or disagree. OMG he's a socialist! I hate him so much!
How about this: we look at each issue independently and and decide for ourselves what we want. Instead of saying "I'm with the tea party therefore I'm against gun control, I want lower taxes and stronger border control and no more mosques in America!" You decide for yourself your own opinion on each issue.
That is why most Americans are cowards. They are too afraid to think for themselves. They decide which group they're in and delegate all thought and decision making to others in that group.
Me? I think we should protect the environment, we should build more nuclear power plants to reduce global warming, people should be allowed to have guns (as long as they aren't insane), I'm for a strong free market, we should discourage government services being provided on a federal level except only where necessary, I think we should be more welcoming to immigrants, and there should be religious freedom for all.
I'm not a socialist, liberal, conservative, teabagger or whatever other label you can think up.
Re:Money does not buy happiness, but ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or to use the words of the immortal Dean Martin:
Ask the rich man he'll confess,
Money can't buy happiness.
Ask the poor man he don't doubt,
But he'd rather be miserable with than without.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not stealing to take back stolen property. The rich have bought themselves laws that transferred wealth to them, well, we can vote ourselves laws that transfer it back to us.
OK, what laws has Michael Dell purchased to get himself rich? Remember, he started out making computers out of his UT dorm room. Steve Jobs started out in his garage. How did Jobs and Wozniak afford to buy off the US Senate? How did the rich guys buy laws BEFORE the wealth was transferred to them? I think you need to rework you logic. As it stands, it's flawed.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? Where the hell do you live that you don't know multiple people making that much? I live in a very middle of the road area cost and salary wise (Cincinnati, OH) and the overwhelming majority of people 40+ make $70k+ a year.
The mean and median salary in the US is around $45k a year - however, that factors in a LOT of people who have no education and make minimum wage. If you only look at people with an associates degree and up, you'd see the mean and median salary swing up very quickly. And while I'm normally the last person to be a dick and say "citation needed", I don't believe your 73rd percentile stat at all given that the mean and median (so 50th percentile) are roughly $45k.
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
Yea, I'm about the same age, single, and make the same amount of money - yet I'm well aware that I'm not rich and sure as hell don't feel it. You stated spending $1k on rent and $1k on other bills and entertainment - that means that you save $0 (or close enough to zero). That's the major cause of the current recession - the fact that people didn't save and used credit cards to spend way more than they earned (at least you're not doing that). If you don't save, all it takes is on major surgery or one major failure on your car and you're a few thousand in debt - which with your stated budget, you'd have a very hard time paying off. What if you get laid off? How are you planning on paying for your retirement? Even if SS wasn't bankrupt, it still wouldn't pay you anything close to $2k a month. That's a huge reason why they listed $75k as the number for "happiness" because it means you can buy (within reason) anything you want and still save a decent amount of money for the future or emergencies.
While I'm glad that you don't feel poor, the fact that you think $35k a year is great money is blissful ignorance and is going to bite you in the ass someday - hard.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is why American workers get shafted so hard. Income is even more off-limits for discussion than religion (and that's saying a lot!), so you never realize that the guy working in the office next to your cubical makes ten times your salary, despite only providing maybe one or two times your value to the company (if that).
Social mores like "never discuss your income" strictly benefit the rich.
Stop with the "$75k isn't enough to live on in... (Score:1, Insightful)
Stop with the "$75k isn't enough to live on in NYC, LA, etc." We all know people in those cities aren't happy anyway, so I'm sure they were left out of the data set.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me give you an example. My girlfriend's parents are very well-off. Her father is a dentist who owns his own practice, which employs about 30 other people. It's taken him years of hard work to accomplish this. He didn't start off well-off, he worked his ass off, took risks, and today does very well, and provides a decent living and health insurance for many employees. If you took the money he worked so hard to make to give it to others who did not earn it, he wouldn't be able to help those he helps with a competitive practice and good stable jobs.
Clearly you have absolutely no idea how businesses and taxation work. Here, let me educate you a little:
See, your girlfriend's dad should be (and probably is) incorporated as a business. Then, all that income the business earns would be counted toward the business, and then the business would pay the salaries of the employees. This would include your girlfriend's dad, who would be an employee of the company, and would take a salary accordingly. And, of course, the business income would be taxed at business tax rates, which are much lower than personal tax rates.
So sure, if your girlfriend's dad was a greedy bastard and decided to pay himself a massive salary, he'd get nailed with massive income taxes. OTOH, if he paid himself a reasonable salary, and then left the remaining money in the business to actually, you know, grow the business (hiring more people, purchasing new equipment, etc), he'd see less money lost to taxes, and the economy would see a flourishing business, instead of a fatcat simply enriching himself.
Re:Too much money also means no trust. (Score:1, Insightful)
Why the hell would you abuse your friends by flaunting what you have that they do not have? It has nothing to do with trust.
Re:cheap shot (Score:2, Insightful)
Gutting workplace safety laws. Gutting protections for union organizers. Gutting environmental regulations. Gutting financial regulations. Gutting social programs that make workers secure enough to ask for fair treatment. Letting in foreign workers with H1B visas. Lowering the top tax rate. Tax cuts for shipping jobs overseas. The list goes on and on, man, it's all out war and they are winning.
First, you offer no evidence to any of this, but we'll ignore that for now. I want to know how Steve Jobs gutted financial regulations from his garage. I want to know who was endangered by his tinkering with electronics, creating the first Apple. What social programs did Bill Gates gut when he was meeting with IBM to sell them the first versions of DOS? How on earth did Michael Dell "lower the top tax rate" when was in his early twenties, piecing together machines form his dorm room? How many foreign H1B workers did Nia Vardalos use while writing "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"?
And unions? Really!!??? You talk about the theft from the rich and then bring up unions? The same groups that forcibly take money from workers and use it place politicians in office to give favorable laws to unions? The very same unions that want to strip workers of their rights to private ballot when voting on union matters? The very same groups that host "public" town hall meetings for their purchased politicians and beat anyone who disagrees? Hell, they'll even attack other competing unions [blogspot.com]. Those unions? Are you frakkin' kidding me!??!
Next, have you ever taken the time to consider that these people might make a product or provide a service that people want?
Finally, and back to your "examples", what has any of that taken from you? And again, you have never defined what is "rich". Wouldn't you say Al Gore is rich? Did he do all these things? Are you saying that Al Gore "gutted environmental regulations"?
I work in an enviro friendly building with ergonomic everything making a product that allows people do things from home rather than getting in their cars and driving to our customer's place of business. My boss is loaded. He hasn't done any of the things you accuse all rich people of doing.
And here's an idea. If you feel your boss is guilty of any of the crimes you claim, quit! Bring a box, put all your crap in there and walk your ass out the door and find a job working for a poor person. No one forces you to work at any of these places. Most people do because they want to.
Re:cheap shot (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Because human beings cannot be "given" happiness. That is something that can only be achieved. It is human nature to view that something obtained for free (no work, no sacrifice, etc.) has a much lower value than something that was earned through one's own efforts. Give a man a fish, and he'll wait around until you to give him another, and curse you when it isn't to his liking.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
First you must love yourself...
When that gets boring, take some of that $75,000 and hire a hooker or two.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
And we tax their businesses here. They can't pick up their factories and take them with. If they want to shut them down, we socialize them and give them to the workers. Let the rich cut off their noses to spite their face.
I'm curious. If you truly believe that taking over the factories and giving them to workers is such a good idea, why do you live here? There are many countries all around the world who have done just that. Cuba, China, Venezuela are just a few that come to mind first. Why are you trying so hard to force your Communist nightmare on the rest of us when all you need to do is move to a place to live out your very own Marxist dream?
Re:Mathmatics of dissatisfaction (Score:4, Insightful)
Took me 11 years. At times I went 40 hours without sleep and worked 55 hours and then did over 60 hours of homework in the same week.
The changes it made to me as a person (not the education) were worth every minute.
But it cost me very little financially (probably under $14,000) and I graduated debt free. It was kind of fun until year 8. Then I realized I still had 54ish hours to go out of a 130 hour degree (and 38 hours sunk on a change of majors).
College for who it makes you as a person- worth it. For the income- not worth it any more.
So choose a small inexpensive college- go 4 years. Graduate with little debt.
Unless you have awesome connections.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:2, Insightful)
And the only way to control costs is central planning, which is .... socialistic.
Health Care is a limited resource, which is why every universal health care program uses rationing and other "cost controls" which drives out doctors and other medical practicioners who leave the field because they are overworked, underpaid. Which leads to ever increasing rationing and other means of reducing demand (artificially).
Two steps to really want to fix health care system:
1) Get rid of Insurance for NORMAL costs by focusing on rare, but catastrophic health care problems. I'd rather have the $1200/mo insurance plan I have as cash going into a health saving account and having a high deductible (100K) policy for the odd case of disaster.
2) Require single price health care by providers. Everyone pays the exact same for the same service. No discounts for Insurance, no Premium Pricing for the uninsured.
IF you did those two things you would control all the costs by letting the individual shop. And to really control costs, one has to remove all the middlemen out of the picture. The cost of insurance is HUGE price on the cost of healthcare in the US. Remove Insurance except in the rarest of situations and the cost will go down.
Yes, I have relatives in Europe who complain endlessly about how crappy their health care system is. They wish they had the option to have a US style health care system.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, brilliant. Get rid of the government after the rich have used them to steal all your money. Right now, the government works for the rich because we don't vote in our own interests. Americans need to wake up and stop enabling our abusers. We have national Stockholm Syndrome.
Even if you choose how you spend your money, the rich still take you to the cleaners. In any free transaction, both people walk away with more value. Obviously, they value what they got over what they gave. But how much more? That gray area is where the wealthy do their work. They do everything they can to ensure that 99.999% of the extra value in any transaction goes to them. You walk away just barely happier with your purchase than your money, while they would have still been happy had they received far less than they did.
The wealthy actively collude with each other to devalue labor and workers, so they get you when you work, as well as when you buy from them. You are not paid what you are worth, no worker is.
If you are happy being raped by these dicks, well, I guess it takes all kinds and some people are into that kind of abuse and humiliation. Not me.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
No such thing as lack of demand? That is utterly stupid. You don't even support that inane statement, just utter it as a matter of fact, and then tack on a non sequiter about fiat money. You are a walking museum of wingnut cliches and your opinions should not be taken seriously.
The US government is nowhere near bankruptcy, you libertarian loon. Look at the bond market, people seem damn sure the government will pay them back, and history shows us they are right to think that.
As a follower of a discredited fringe school of economics that was invented by the rich to excuse the policies of and for the rich, why should anyone listen to a single self serving word you say?
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Investment income is income, so tax that. And stop pretending we are powerless against the rich, this is a democracy. We just have to stop believing we are powerless, or that we need the rich to hand out jobs. We need to stop this "abusive stepfather state" (see what I did there?) that caters to the rich.
Re:This is painfully obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about we stop talking about things as "rights" which require "taking" from someone else something of value to give to someone else?
Health Care is NOT a right. Rights don't depend on other people, they are self evident (exist on their own).
IF you want to call it something, lets call it what it is, a privilege that is afforded us because we are wealthy, educated and technically advanced enough.
BTW, all three of those things are subject to change, and are changing even as we speak, because we have continued to make privileges into rights, and killing our ability to compete against countries that have no such illusions.
Re:cheap shot (Score:3, Insightful)
Holy Fuck, Atlas Shrugged? Seriously? You are recommending the worst piece of pseudo-philosophical tripe written in the last thousand years? Go back to study hall, college boy.
Please take note of this important number. (Score:3, Insightful)
So if this is to be believed, then with a current world population of 6,697,254,041 (*75,000)
It would cost 502,294,053,075,000 per year
so 500 Trillion dollars a year for EVERYone to be happy.
Current world gdp is 61 Trillion.
My Utopian dream bubble has been popped.
Re:Mathmatics of dissatisfaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense the so called "bust" would not necessarily mean that he wouldn't still be making 90k, even after the "bust", most people making that before are still making that or more, AND he would have had all the additional work experience at that time, to justify at least maintaining that rate.
Presumably he's out $90k, for some portion of the years he took off to pursue graduate work, however, and probably more when you account for things like raises.
Meaning it's generous to say he's $10k in the hole. In actuality, he probably sacrificed an opportunity cost of $180k + interest to pursue the masters, by not having that 90k income during that time, in addition to the actual tuition and other costs imposed by the school and his circumstances, not to mention the gap in his work experience ---- even though it was to pursue an education, this 'gap' can be expected to make him less attractive to an employer, or less meritorous of a higher wage.
He is also pursuing different type of work. And the graduate degree could make him appear overqualified for jobs he had had before.
So his "graduate" degree cost approximately $240,000 in real terms. Maybe it would have been cheaper if he had waited until the so called "bust". Maybe not.
Some things not being considered: (A) DON'T expect to see an immediate benefit from having a graduate degree. Expect to see long-term improvement in earnings instead. If your graduate degree is from a university with a strong reputation, it will increase your long term earnings potential, or open up possible doors that would be closed otherwise, many jobs, especially research/teaching jobs at universities, are open only to holders of a MS or P.h.D. ---- just because it may have a possibility of doing this in the future, does not necessarily mean it helps you immediately.
Expecting an immediate return here, is kind of like buying a stock based on a company's fundamentals, and saying the company's a crappy investment if you don't get a great return in a week.
(B) Getting the graduate degree might not pay off economically. If you wanted it to do that, you should have a realistic idea of how it will do that. "They will pay me more to do exactly the same thing", is probably not a realistic assessment. Particularly when graduate work isn't particularly related to "the thing".
(C) It would be better if you had something in mind you need a graduate degree to do, that you want to do in the first place. Economic advantage matters, but cannot realistically be the be-all end-all. You can have lots of dollars, but be bored with your work, as the GP finds.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)