How much money do you need to be happy?

MrFonzerelli

Found this on the internet, amazing what's on there.

Money can buy costumes but not beauty
Money can buy idols but not devotion
Money can buy books but not wisdom and knowledge
Money can buy bed but not rest and sleep
Money can buy medicines but not health
Money can buy wealth but not health
Money can buy clothes but not shame
Money can buy food but not hunger
Money can buy flowers but not freshness and fragrance
Money can buy land but not home (made of human hearts)
Money can buy honey but not sweetness
Money can buy somethings but not everything
Money can buy luxuries but not happiness.

LilacPixie

lostinrates wrote: »

Just to be clear you are saying £24k plus tax credits?


I wonder what that would be in total?

That would be £24545, in total.

When I had my daughter only I worked and OH stayed at home because he was finishing his degree. I earned 21k and we got £10.50 a week in child tax credit. :rolleyes:

For me I would like 120k a year. I feel that is enough to by what I want when I want and be mortgage free within 10 years on a large home with decent gardens

lostinrates

LilacPixie wrote: »

That would be £24545, in total.

When I had my daughter only I worked and OH stayed at home because he was finishing his degree. I earned 21k and we got £10.50 a week in child tax credit. :rolleyes:

For me I would like 120k a year. I feel that is enough to by what I want when I want and be mortgage free within 10 years on a large home with decent gardens

Thank you. I'm lucky enough never to have made a claim or request for anything, so I'm truely ignorant as to what benefits/claims etc add up too I admit I thought various things would add up to more!

JayScottGreenspan

ninky wrote: »

I'm not suggesting a supertax like we had then, rather a cap on earnings. £20 000 a week is a lot of money. Why should ANYONE get more than that.

Suppose someone is earning £20k a week.

Further suppose they have a great idea that will help them make 'widgets' more efficiently than the competition. With a bit of application they can sell widgets to customers for less than the current market price and make an extra £5k a week for themselves. It might be hard work, but will improve the nations spending power.

Under your system they would not bother.


For a more real world example, next time you're driving your lovely modern motor car, ask yourself why a bunch of very very rich people put an awful lot of their capital at risk in order to advance the technology past that of the Vauhall Viva. Then apply that thought to every single product you buy each day your life...

BTW, first episode of this was quite interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jcgzt/upcoming

ninky_2

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

next time you're driving your lovely modern motor car, ask yourself why a bunch of very very rich people put an awful lot of their capital at risk in order to advance the technology past that of the Vauhall Viva.

I don't drive a modern motor car - share a £300 15 year old Rover with the OH. There's quite a lot of "advanced" technology that gives no benefit to my life or millions of others as it's way out of our affordability range.

I do believe a lot of very very rich people put an awful lot of their capital at risk to protect and advance the tobacco industry. Likewise the arms industry. Likewise loads of just pointless consumer nonsense that uses up resources and has no real purpose. And there are quite a lot of other products like that if I put my mind to it I wish had never come into existence.

Excessive wealth in the hands of individuals has no moral purpose - please don't try to give it one.

bendix

ninky wrote: »

Bendix can you give me an example of a system that has actually "prevailed" as you put it. I can't think of any empire that hasn't risen and fallen. There are very very few examples of utopian idealogies put into practice so I don't think you can use history as your guide in this case.

You can't dismiss every economic idea that is for the betterment of society as "utopian" and neither can you tar every future philosophy with the same brush. Human's are capable of evolving. It is possible that we might evolve for the better.

Why, yes, I can. Liberal democracy underpinned by a commitment to freemarket economics, underpinned by a social welfare system designed to shelter the most unfortunate people in society.

While there have been stresses and strains and various tensions (including now) it has prevailed and will prevail. Ever since the concept was conceived as a result of a number of different (and often contradictory) forces such as the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the ideas of Adam Smith, the growth of Parliamentary Democracy, the expansion of the ideas around the world through the influence of the British Empire etc, it is an ethos which has survived and flourished despite huge tests, including World Wars, antithetical orthodoxies like Communism and Fascism, globalisation, terrorism etc.

I defy anyone to say that the life of the average person living under these systems isnt better today than it was 200, 100, 50, or even 20 years ago. It is an ethos which has revolutionised the lives of ordinary people, from the UK and USA and right aroudn the world. Even those systems opposed to it, have eventually succumbed to a certain extent such as Russia and, increasingly, China.

And why is that? It's simple. Because it gives people the freedom to be the best they can be. It allows them to grow, thrive and prosper based on their own efforts, not those of anonymous mandarins in the Civil Service.

Sometimes it looks like this system is in danger, but it always comes back stronger than ever before, like a rose needing to be pruned to flourish and grow.

And it will continue to do so.

Back to your £20,000 a week maximum. Why? Why? Why impose a limit? What possible value does it serve? Who benefits? The poor, and if so how? What is the rationale except for the vague notion that it sounds 'lovely'?

By the way, I'm neither a communist nor a fascist. Both ideologies are intellectually empty, premised as they are on the notion that someone knows better than me what is right for me. NOONE knows better than me and, even if they did, I reserve the right to f**k up my life on my own terms, with no intervention by anyone else.

So, in that sense, I'm a classical libertarian.

bendix

MrFonzerelli wrote: »

Found this on the internet, amazing what's on there.

Money can buy costumes but not beauty
Money can buy idols but not devotion
Money can buy books but not wisdom and knowledge
Money can buy bed but not rest and sleep
Money can buy medicines but not health
Money can buy wealth but not health
Money can buy clothes but not shame
Money can buy food but not hunger
Money can buy flowers but not freshness and fragrance
Money can buy land but not home (made of human hearts)
Money can buy honey but not sweetness
Money can buy somethings but not everything
Money can buy luxuries but not happiness.

Where did you find this? www.morebloodyhippyclicheswrittenbyspoiltamericanbratswithtrustfunds.com ?

Any

ninky wrote: »

Studies have suggested that there is a maximum income above which happiness is not increased.

Those studying "Hedonics" have given figures such as $40 000 (yes, many of them are American).

So I'd like to ask, how much money do you think would make you happy?

What would this amount represent to you in terms of the life you could lead?

Also, if everyone else was earning this, would you be more happy? Or would you be happier if you knew you were making more than everyone else?

Being self employed my "income" is less black and white. Last year I had a turnover of 55k and a taxable profit of 33k. If everyone around me was earning the same I think I would be perfectly happy.

Difficult to say. At this very point in my life:
Enough to - pay an average mortgage payment (70%) on the average house
- to be able to drive reasonably new car (2-5yrs) of average size (fiesta?)
- not have to worry about whether I buy Basic range or middle range in the supermarket
- to go on 1 local and 1 longish haul holiday a year (max £1000 a person)

But than in a few years time I will need:

- extra money to afford child maintenance and child care while I am at work
- extra money for extra little person to go on holiday
- to pay babysitters at least once or twice a month

As long as I can leave "average" life, I am happy.

The fact is, that I have no idea. I think I will just wait and see and just fight what comes my way.. :-))

JayScottGreenspan

ninky wrote: »

Excessive wealth in the hands of individuals has no moral purpose - please don't try to give it one.

What have morals got to do with it? Surely the overall standard of living of the population is more important?

PS - I hate tobacco and arms companies too.

bendix

To go back to ninky's comment that there are very few utopian societies ever been tried, so it's impossible to judge if they have been successful or not . . . . . here is the reason why.

Someone has to define the term. What exactly does utopian mean, and if there is someone defining that term for everyone else, does that imply a godlike status for them - someone uber-utopian, for example?

Pol Pot believed his system would lead to an agrarian Utopia for his country, free from the shackles of capitalism and the West. His thinking was largely based on the Cambodian concept of Ankhar, a variation of Buddhist Philosophy. Lenin took the Marxist utopian vision and applied it to Russia - he thought he was doing it for the right reasons. Mao too.

The Pilgrims who left England for America did so to establish a religious utopia where everyone could be free, equal and prosper (unless you thought differently to them, of course). Ditto every other quasi-utopian movement.

And they all imploded. Every one. Without exception.

Because the ignore the human desire to succeed, grow and enhance one's lot. To push a utopian philosophy is, ironically, the antithesis of the very level of fairness and democracy utopia-advocates want. And there's the irony.

The concept of utopia is fundamentally flawed. It's paradoxical in that the very act of defining utopia places the definer above the defined, and so is contaminated immediately.