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Happiness is earning $60,000/year

mymoneyblog.com

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Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#91

Post by roel_v »

mistermann wrote: post #82
Nwallins wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted by accident. You should invest where you see value. Otherwise you just sound envious and bitter.

Ya, maybe I didn't express that properly, I AM bitter! I'm bitter that my government is using my tax dollars to play with interest rates allowing a real estate bubble to exist in the first place. In a normal market, one should be able to reasonable purchase a home based on local wages. Since central bankers have decided to counteract the actions of the normal business cycle, I am now stuck in a 10-20 year battle whil…

Upvoted by accident :(

"In a normal market, one should be able to reasonable purchase a home based on local wages."

Says who? You're not even making the point of the actual existence of a bubble believable, and my cursory search shows that most people don't agree with your claims. And that's not even mentioning that there is no reason ever that it "should be easy". You can borrow at a fixed rate for 5% FFS! In the 80's people paid 10-15 % ! Was it so much better back then?

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#92

Post by electromagnetic »

SapphireSun wrote: post #62
electromagnetic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it? What makes you happier; smoking a cigarette that makes you feel good, or avoiding it like all hell because it could cause cancer in you? Similarly, what makes you happier; eating a double big mac, large fries and substitute a large drink for a large milkshake and almost die from a foodgasm, or be told you just ate like 1000 calories and you're basically going to have to eat rice cakes for the rest of the da…

I met a chain smoking guy with lung cancer. He was not happy.

I bet he was until he got diagnosed though, and if he had never been diagnosed and died from old age like 1/2 of smokers do, he'd have been happy.

My point is that when I'm told eating red meat daily will increase my risk of colon cancer by 300%, it really doesn't give me great concern when it's really raising my risk of developing the disease from 1 in 10,000 to about 1 in 3,333. Considering the mortality rates, it's still sitting at a 1 in 10,000 chance that I'll die from colon/rectal cancer from a large consumption of red meat. So really, is it worth my concern whatsoever or is the stress of eternal vigilance in my daily diets going to kill me much sooner?

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#93

Post by yason »

synnik wrote: post #63

That sounds about right. From about 1999-2004, I didn't negotiate salaries. I told potential employers that I wanted exactly 60K. The question was how many hours a week I would have to work to earn it. The winner was 22 hours. I only changed this tactic when I had kids. Because that changes everything.

Why did you change it because you had kids?

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#94

Post by yason »

You can be happy with really low earnings, too. It's just harder then but the happiness or lack of it is still inside your head.

It's harder with very little money because you will have to learn to be truly happy—not just I-don't-have-to-worry-about-paying-for-food-and-rent happy.

In the latter case, you can keep thinking of how happy you are because you have so few things to worry about. In the former case you can't afford to worry at all.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#96

Post by randallsquared »

grellas wrote: post #26

Americans are materially wealthy relative to most of the rest of the world. I would suspect (without having any sort of citation to support it) that, when compared to Americans, most of the people who have ever lived in any time and in any country have known nowhere near the standard of living represented by a $60K annual income in the U.S. today. If that assumption is true, and if the premise of this piece is also c…

most of the people who have ever lived throughout all of humanity's existence have been unhappy with their lives. That would seem to me a dubious proposition.

Actually, I would agree with the assertion that most humans who've ever lived have been less than happy through most of their lives. The 60K number is mentioned in the context of being in the top 20 percent, status-wise, so this implies that most Americans are unhappy even though they're richer than Croesus, quite literally. This squares with my experience.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#98

Post by stcredzero »

greendestiny wrote: post #52
kqr2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key to the $60K happiness threshold is that it represents being in the top 20% income bracket. Standard of living may be lower elsewhere, however, an individual's relative wealth (especially with respect to peers) is probably what's really relevant: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3315638/Rela...

In fact it might represent both an absolute and a relative component, all it really says is that in the USA today that combined figure seems to be $60k.

I suspect that our system is (unintentionally) rigged so that only the top 20% are set-up for happiness. I suspect that most social systems are set up in such a way, such that the majority have to strive for something.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#99

Post by masomenos »

Aetius wrote: post #86
dandelany wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it seems a little presumptuous of you to believe you have the foresight to determine which fields are extraordinary and which are simply respectable, don't you think?

You're right. It is very presumptuous,almost to the point of pretension. I would change the post if I could. I don't actually know what field will be extraordinary and which will be simply respectable. However, I can understand AI and robotics, and from what I've seen, there isn't extraordinary work being done (please feel free to prove otherwise). There are only incremental advances being made that improve our lives…

No idea what "extraordinary" means to you, but the scenarios reported in Peter Singer's recent book on military robotics, Wired for War, represent some potentially huge shifts. They may not "improve our lives" though.

Re: Happiness is earning $60,000/year

#100

Post by xbryanx »

Hey tech brainiacs. Read this, and then come work at one of the many non-profit organizations starving for your intelligence, but unable to attract you because of ridiculous salary imbalances. We'd love to have you...and 60k is about all we'll ever be able to afford...and you'll be happy.
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