How much money do people need to be happy? • Hacker News Board

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#261

Post by monkeyfoop » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 9:33 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #160

monkeyfoop wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said government is bad. But income tax is theft. If you do not pay our overseers, then you are at the wrong end of a gun or the otherwise of a steel cage.

you can choose to denounce your citizenship and stop paying taxes. but your also need to leave the country, and live as a stateless Pirate. and any state enforced rules don't apply so you better arm yourself to the teeth and hide from any roaming military.

There are countries that provide military and policing and do not take %50 of your income to redistribute to the self victimized.

Your logical conclusion is non sequitor.

The point is that it is theft.

Whether they theif offers your "protection" for taking from you, is besides the point.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#262

Post by ivanhoe » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 11:51 AM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #234

ivanhoe wrote: post #210

I think the correct definition is: "When you have enough to survive and you make as much money as people you compare yourself with". That's why back in the days of socialism in Eastern Europe most of the people were quite content with being relatively poor, as long as they had the sense of social security and everyone else around them was as poor as them. On the other hand, nowadays many freelancers from poorer count…

Please do not put your propaganda in people's mouths. I lived back in communist Eastern Europe and I can assure you nobody was content in any way. It was a nightmare.

So did I, but Eastern Europe is a wide term. Living conditions in Yugoslavia were actually quite nice until the 80s. But I'm not saying it was a good system (it wasn't, I'm not fond of communism at all), just that majority of people were content with it for a long time. It's a statistical fact, and not just in Yugoslavia, but you can hear from many people even in Russia or Romania that they used to feel happier and safer than they do now, while their conditions in absolute terms were really bad even from my Yugoslavian perspective. People value safety the most, and than next it seems that they value their social position in the group. If they get the both, they can feel accomplished and that's the primary factor for us to feel good about our lives.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#263

Post by ivanhoe » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 11:57 AM UTC

mbrodersen wrote: post #257

ivanhoe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But on the other hand taxes are significantly higher than in US, in order to finance that system. It's a trade off...

This is the big mistake people always make: focusing on the tax rate. Wake up. The tax rate does not matter. At all! What matters is the end result: your buying power. How much good stuff (goods and services) are you getting in return for the time you spend working? THAT is what matters.

Only if you plan to live in that country for the rest of your life, and you're absolutely sure that the economy will never change, so your buying power always stays the same.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#264

Post by ikeyany » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

projektir wrote: post #258

ikeyany wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind me asking how your spending habits have remained constant? Do you rent or own? What part of the country do you live in? Have you any kids?

I am speaking about spending habits , you seem to be talking about relative cost of life events. I don't have kids but kids are usually not what people are referring to since kids are a cost increase for all parties, rich and poor. Basically, if I usually buy a certain Ikea table if I need a table, I still buy that Ikea table, and it still feels too expensive to me, regardless of the fact that I earn a lot more now.…

Getting to that point of equilibrium takes some spending, however. Lots of college debt, rent, moving expenses to get where you want your career to be, etc.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#265

Post by tortoise1 » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

I am making 105K and i am not sure about happiness. I am happy some part of the day, then i am sleeping then i am working and then i am not happy for some reason for few mins and then i am happy again for some other reason. Sometimes mins are hours and some times day are days.

Is there anyone who is happy 24/7/365?

Why is there such measurement of happiness? When it cannot really be measured.

Some times when there is one kid playing with me i am happy and when some times there are 10 kids around me screaming i am not happy.

I think these days we really need a down vote and dislike buttons as i don't understand why money and time is being wasted into such misleading research efforts.

You can be happy with $0 and happy with $1,000,000. and also you can be not happy with $0 and not happy with $1,000,000.

It is the amount of time you are happy, and i don't think anyone on this planet can be happy 24/7/365.

The number of happy moments may be something that is measurable but that also cannot be tied to any other factor.

I think if the AI is built on top of such false big data then its just going to result into artificial stupidity.

We don't need more of those.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#266

Post by IkmoIkmo » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 8:10 PM UTC

shoo wrote: post #246

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The point I'm trying to make here though, which I lightly implied, is that regressive tax systems and distributive justice lead to overal higher happiness. i.e., if there are diminishing marginal returns of happiness from money, it makes sense that Total Happiness in a country is optimised through a substantially regressive system. That's one of the interesting things about it.

> regressive tax systems and distributive justice lead to overal higher happiness. I suspect by "regressive tax" you mean "a tax rate that increases as the amount subject to taxation increases" . Wikipedia defines "regressive tax" to be the opposite one- where the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. Or you're making a fairly non-obvious and interesting claim!

Oops, thanks for the correction!

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#267

Post by IkmoIkmo » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #251

shoo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regressive tax systems and distributive justice lead to overal higher happiness. I suspect by "regressive tax" you mean "a tax rate that increases as the amount subject to taxation increases" . Wikipedia defines "regressive tax" to be the opposite one- where the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases. Or you're making a fairly non-obvious and interesting claim!

I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word. I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well.

> I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word.

They're definitely not?

> I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well.

My claim makes no sense cause I used the wrong (opposite) word! Apologies, please read it the other way around.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#268

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 12:05 AM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #267

leetcrew wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word. I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well.

> I believe NL taxes are in fact regressive in the usual sense of the word. They're definitely not? > I'm curious what the justification for this claim is as well. My claim makes no sense cause I used the wrong (opposite) word! Apologies, please read it the other way around.

I wrote that comment a bit carelessly. the income tax itself is progressive, but things like VAT are regressive and ultimately make up a far greater share of tax collected.

the EU as a whole actually has a more regressive tax system than the united states (although they spend the proceeds very differently), but in the netherlands, the regressive and progressive taxes essentially cancel out so that overall taxes are flat.

here are some sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/09/19/other... https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/12/i... https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/12/05/...

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#269

Post by JBlue42 » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #178

LaurensBER wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, stepping from 40K to 100K in salary is practically life altering. Unless you absolutely suck at budgets you can easily get out of debt and start having real vacations. You can afford hobbies, etc. I live in the Netherlands where 40K is quite a reasonable income. I really dont get why you would need 100k to do the things you need. Perhaps people need to become a bit more frugal? People here in general don…

I don't know how health care works anywhere else, but health expenses can range from $250 for a standard checkup, which I just got (note: it's supposed to be covered for free, but apparently insurance companies are now rejecting claims willy nilly in order to save money) to $10,000 for delivering a baby, to astronomical numbers for anything else. It really leads to a persistent feeling of danger, so yes, making 100k…

Had to get a TB test prior to starting a new job. Everything was covered for me but there's the cost of health care itself in the US plus the little cuts that add up to. If can't get validation, parking is expensive. A little sign above the check-in desk said that there would be a $25 charge to fill out worker's comp forms.

At least they had movies on and weren't blasting Fox News.

Re: How much money do people need to be happy?

#270

Post by JBlue42 » Sun, Mar 04, 2018, 9:27 AM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #70

Anyone else find that even as they do their best to be frugal, expenses pile up as fast as your paycheck does? In my case, as soon as I started making decent money, I got a hearing and glasses (I didn't have them before), started taking physiotherapy to fix my shoulders, going to the dentist, changing the oil in my car on schedule, buying shoes as they wore out instead of pushing them until they gave me hip and knee…

Yes. Waiting on new job to start then might get new tires (tread is good but they're 8-9 years old). Might get some basic household stuff I've neglected (new pillow). Haven't been to a dentist in a while so...yeah, scared to do that but nothing is wrong as far as I can tell knock wood.