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Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: arce1988 on May 01, 2013, 01:47:06 PM
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http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/01/money-happiness/?hpt=hp_c4
A new study debunks the theory that money doesn't make you any happier once you've passed a certain income threshold.
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FORTUNE – They say money can't buy happiness, but a new study suggests it actually can. In fact, the more money you have, the happier you are.
That might sound obvious to some people, but studies have historically shown there's more to happiness than money. In the 1970s, economist Richard Easterlin argued that increasing average income did not raise average well-being, a claim that became known as the Easterlin Paradox. Over the years, the paradox evolved into the notion that money does indeed buy happiness, but that effect fizzles once the income you earn is able to buy your basic needs -- food, shelter, and the like.
Somehow that idea carried into popular notion but was never really formally tested.
Now University of Michigan economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson have examined data for more than 150 countries from sources including the World Bank and the Gallup World Poll. The husband-and-wife team found that the more money people have the happier they are, regardless of whether they're rich or poor. And contrary to earlier studies, there isn't a cutoff point where making more than a certain amount doesn't lead to more happiness.
Needless to say, happiness is a relative term. What does it mean to be happy, anyway?
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Even America's millionaires don't think of themselves as rich, as Fortune's Dan Primack has pointed out. So are they any less happy than poorer folks scraping by earning minimum wage?
Not exactly. It just takes more money to make the super-rich happier, Wolfers and Stevenson note in their study, which is to be published in the May 2013 American Economic Review. In fact, the study found zero unhappy millionaires. Their analysis adds to the collection of studies on happiness that have long interested economists.
To be sure, there are two kinds of happinesses: The day-to-day kind that focuses on your daily mood vs. what Princeton University economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman call "life assessment," which means broader satisfaction with your place in the world. In their 2010 study, they found that day-to-day happiness rises as people earn more money, but once they hit $75,000 a year, they don't get any happier. Admittedly that threshold seems arbitrary in places like New York City, where, as The New York Times recently highlighted, middle-class is a vague class, since incomes there vary so widely.
Nonetheless, according to Deaton and Kahneman, the more money people have, the more likely they'll feel they have a better life. This taps into the keeping up with the Joneses mindset: If I earn more, I could buy a fancier car than Mr. Jones next door. Or if I earn more, I may be able to donate more of my fortune than Warren Buffett or some other rich person.
Wolfers's and Stevenson's study speaks to the latter kind of happiness, where fulfillment is infinite so long as your income rises.
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This makes a lot of sense. Money, while it can't always buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In the U.S., the average person earns $37,708 a year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. That's more than the average of $22,387 of the OECD's 34-member developed countries.
Overall, the U.S. ranks pretty high in the OECD's Better Life Index, which measures the happiness of countries based on, among other things, access to education and health care. Though Americans are generally happy, there are still a lot of unhappy folks if money does indeed buy happiness. There's a considerable gap between the richest and poorest -- the top 20% of the population earn about eight times as much as the bottom 20%.
So if happiness is what you want, look inward, rather than what your neighbors might have. Sounds obvious, but sometimes it takes a team of economists to prove it.
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maybe so... but you can be miserable in comfort :)
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Those who say money doesn't buy happiness never had none
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Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson....she didn't even take his last name...
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Money doesn't buy happiness. This study is just another tactic by the elites to keep you working longer and harder in the false hope that you will achieve the holy grail of happiness. I have had periods in my life where I have had plenty of money, normally the times I was most miserable. And one of my sisters and brother in law have tons of money, both have 6 figure incomes, new cars every couple of years, investment properties and all the trimmings. My sister is the most miserable bitch you could ever meet, highly strung, self righteous, narcissistic and always angry. I feel so sorry for her husband, she is always telling him off and what to do and he just takes it. Anyway, the more money she made the more of a miserable bitch she became.
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It may not buy happiness, but it sure staves off the misery of poverty.
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Those who say money doesn't buy happiness never had none
What it does buy is freedom. Which definitely adds an element of happiness.
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It may not buy happiness, but it sure staves off the misery of poverty.
That's not money, that's what most people have is enough to stave off misery and poverty. Money equals savings of a million or more, plenty of investments, multiple houses and at least a 6 figure income.
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Money can't buy happiness but neither can poverty. ::)
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Money can't buy health, and health is the single most important thing in life.
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Money can't buy happiness but neither can poverty. ::)
I don't know, it isn't so hard to be happy with a little. You really have to define poverty, but to be happy very very little is required, you just simply need to meet life's most basic needs and develop a good stoical attitude. Personally I think it would be easier to be happier when poor than when rich. Wealthy people are always worried about maintaining their wealth, losing their wealth, watching their investments, and keeping up with the Jones etc. Being poor is far easer and requires a lot less worry. I think the fear of being poor is over exaggerated.
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People that say otherwise are poor, jealous fuckers that wished they were wealthy. Most likely Obama voters and on welfare
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Happiness is whatever you want it to be.
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Will smiths "the pursuit of happyness"
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I want money. So many dreams of mine were crushed because i wasn't financially capable at the time.
...but i'm still here, and life is good.
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Money doesn't buy happiness, but it affords you options in life. And having options is rarely a bad thing.
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"Money can't buy happiness", a saying invented by the rich to keep the poor happy and feel good about themselves.
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"Money can't buy happiness", a saying invented by the rich to keep the poor happy and feel good about themselves.
Money can't but happiness, a saying invented by the poor when they witnessed how miserable the rich were compared to them. If you need money to feel good about yourself or to feel happy, your more than likely a miserable individual. Happy people don't need anything more than what they have been given by nature to acquire happiness. Essentially remaining healthy is the surest ticket to happiness. The healthier you are, the happier you will be.
The whole money can buy happiness is a myth created by Economists and the ultra wealthy as a propaganda tool to encourage people to work harder and keep the economy turning. Essentially it is used by the rich to keep the majority enslaved into a cycle that maintains the wealth of the already wealthy, nothing to do with happiness. Imagine how quickly the wealthy would become poor, if people realised they didn't need to work 50 hours a week to find happiness, imagine they learned they could derive greater satisfaction from life by lowering their wants and desires and creating a more simple, self sufficient life. Yes, linking happiness and wealth is a great propaganda tool for those who are already very wealthy, it is designed to keep them wealthy, and the majority in a cycle of working hard and perpetually just out of reach of real wealth. It's a fantastic piece of propaganda.
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It may not buy happiness, but it sure staves off the misery of poverty.
BOOM!
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I've been poor and I've been rich...and let me tell you, rich is better! - Mae West