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Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#211

Post by hycaria »

hudibras wrote: post #163
brazzy wrote: post #108

> Where did Norton find his rich people? For that particular study, an investment bank connected him with some of its high-net-worth clients. But Norton also told me that he had previously consulted with a pool of Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions Sounds like that would impose a pretty hefty sampling bias. I'm fairly sure there is a large pool of people who are very quite and quite happy…

>Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions The researchers didn't tell them what the questions were about ahead of time.

And ? Maybe people prone to answering a survey from researchers have other behavioral similarities and thus make the sampling is biased.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#212

Post by hycaria »

lordnacho wrote: post #184
hycaria wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You'll need a bigger place to live. You'll want to send the kids to private school. You'll need a bigger car. Maybe it would be more correct to say You'll want a bigger place and a bigger car too, because there's no real need there.

Depends a lot on the particular place you're in. And that in turn may depend a lot on where your existing network is.

Yeah, because children die of cramping when they don't have individual rooms.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#213

Post by 10122018 »

murukesh_s wrote: post #178
10122018 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i would even suggest $10MN is also a risky bet If you had to guess, what percentage of people outside HN, outside Silicon Valley, do you think would consider having $10M to be a risky bet? I'm sorry, but I believe that is very, very disconnected from the reality that most people live in.

I was talking from the silicon valley perspective. You need to adjust it based on the country you live in. I understand you, I have been a student and believe me I lived for few dollars a day (that too in a comfy way) including accommodation and food. When I started a job in 2004, making 200k USD was my dream retirement amount. Now I don't call it would be comfortable with even $10 mn and never having to work again.…

> I was talking from the silicon valley perspective. You need to adjust it based on the country you live in.

Yes, I can appreciate that.

And I appreciate your offer. It's honestly pretty nice just to know that somebody here understands, and cares. We have all struggled, and will continue to struggle, in our own ways. Kindness is everything.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#214

Post by amriksohata »

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures TEXTS 13-15

The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him; and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice." In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance.

Purport:

The demoniac man knows no limit to his desire to acquire money. That is unlimited. He only thinks how much assessment he has just now and schemes to engage that stock of wealth farther and farther. For that reason, he does not hesitate to act in any sinful way and so deals in the black market for illegal gratification. He is enamoured by the possessions he has already, such as land, family, house and bank balance, and he is always planning to improve them. He believes in his own strength, and he does not know that whatever he is gaining is due to his past good deeds. He is given an opportunity to accumulate such things, but he has no conception of past causes. He simply thinks that all his mass of wealth is due to his own endeavor. A demoniac person believes in the strength of his personal work, not in the law of karma. According to the law of karma, a man takes his birth in a high family, or becomes rich, or very well educated, or very beautiful because of good work in the past. The demoniac thinks that all these things are accidental and due to the strength of his personal ability. He does not sense any arrangement behind all the varieties of people, beauty, and education. Anyone who comes into competition with such a demoniac man is his enemy. There are many demoniac people, and each is enemy to the others. This enmity becomes more and more deep-between persons, then between families, then between societies, and at last between nations. Therefore there is constant strife, war and enmity all over the world.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#215

Post by jahaja »

antocv wrote: post #204
simonh wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I think one need to understand that those kind of things have been said about western capitalism/society for a long long time, even under appalling injustice, segregation etc. Its purpose is to comfort the privileged, not necessarily to be true.

The underlying pattern has been there for even longer of course, e.g. Bertrand Russell wrote this in 1932:

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#217

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

jgh wrote: post #123
CalRobert wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I weird? I spent a year living somewhat frugally (still enjoyed myself, still took a trip now and then) in San Diego and spent about 20,000. That was only my share tbf, my wife covered her half of expenses. We had a flat in a nice neighbourhood, shared an old but decent-condition car, took one trip to New England that year.. We had obamacare which helped a lot. I see people on HN talking about needing massive amou…

The massive amount of money basically sits in an investment account and generates dividends to live off of. That's what people are talking about. In order to have a salary they're used to they need like 20-30x the cash in the bank to generate it (preferably a bit extra to keep up with inflation too). Otherwise if you weren't using it to do that presumably you'd eventually run out of money and have to go back to work…

> In order to have a salary they're used to

Well there's the problem right there. Your salary should be higher than your cost of living because you're actively trying to save for retirement. Once you're actually retired you shouldn't need as much.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#218

Post by kaybe »

murukesh_s wrote: post #173
kaybe wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'know, that's what I like about the European social security systems (not all of them of course, but some). It's just that, security. You can be sure you will have healthcare, you will have housing and you will have food, and so will all your dependents. (Ah and of course you will have to fill out a lot of papers and they will bug you to find a job, and your level of living will be at university student level, but s…

Agreed. I think it's a very good to have a social security to back you. In place where I live very few percentage of people who go for govt. jobs are lucky to get pension directly from the govt., which is always adjusted for inflation so you can have a comfortable life. People outside of that social security are constantly worried and in pursuit of having a decent retirement income option. Wish a system like in Europ…

From statistics and research, most people on longer-term support really want to work and can't for some reason (can't find a job due to qualification mismatch, illness or taking care of dependents, ..).

From the data it does not seem to make people here lazy, and being long-term unemployed is still bad for mental health and being part of society. I am not sure how much of this is cultural since it is surely connected to attitudes towards work.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#219

Post by nathan_f77 »

CalRobert wrote: post #90
rgbrenner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100k * 10% = 10k/year. 10% is about the best return you can count on (very optimistically) I don't know what country you live in, but 10k in the US, even for a single person, would put you far below the poverty line. No way you could afford that dental work after you pay rent on that. And let's not even talk about all of the other huge expenses that will come up later in your life. $10m * 3% = $300k/year That's a hig…

Am I weird? I spent a year living somewhat frugally (still enjoyed myself, still took a trip now and then) in San Diego and spent about 20,000. That was only my share tbf, my wife covered her half of expenses. We had a flat in a nice neighbourhood, shared an old but decent-condition car, took one trip to New England that year.. We had obamacare which helped a lot. I see people on HN talking about needing massive amou…

The massive amount of money is just to generate investment income so that you don't spend down the principal. People often use 4% as a safe withdrawal rate, but it's much safer to use 3.5% or 3%.

For example, if you wanted to spend $20k per year, then you would need $20,000 / 0.03 = $666,666 invested in index funds.

I'd be happy with something like $40k per year ($1,333,333 invested), or just a SaaS service that provides passive income. Running a business is far riskier, but it also gives you something to do.

And maybe I wouldn't mind having a nice house in an expensive city like New York, Melbourne, Vancouver, etc. $20,000 per year would be nice, but I think $200,000 would be pretty nice as well.

Re: Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

#220

Post by [deleted] »

ThomPete wrote: post #207

A rich man is just a poor man with a lot of money. The biggest drug with having money is the opportunities that come with it. Financial freedom is freedom to chose what you want to do with your life and who you want to do it with. That's one half of the drug. That your days suddenly can look like one long adventure without too much repetition besides what you choose. The apple in paradise is that other people have mo…

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