Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

From here

Maoraigh wrote:

The continuing closure decision was likely at a high, (Government?) level.

Let us not forget who the Secretary of State for Transport is. I am convinced that he is only kept in the Cabinet to make the rest of them look competent.

From here

dejwu wrote:

the idiots won

Generally, it is not idiots who win, but those with no compunction, guilt or shame, and with no respect for truth.

That is why so many successful top managers are sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists (some estimates say 20% of CEOs). That is how Trump became President, for example.

But in my experience of such people, they become rich but not happy.

But in my experience of such people, they become rich but not happy.

Wishful thinking of those who have nothing. Ah those rich folks are not happy. My experience (from afar) tells me the opposite. As a salaryman in the lower half of the population I can see money equal as freedom, poverty is enslavement of one sort or the other. Not necessarily to a employer but to daily life, where chores, work and every day worry eat up any sort of enjoyment and dreams you may ever have. If you can throw money at this, things change fast.

I have seen people like that who live lifes the normal people can never aspire to and to do so very happily indeed. Folks who can live their dreams, can do the trips they want and talk about it. Most are not the super rich, but middle class entrepreneurs who have found a proper life work balance, something which most people are incapable of doing.

My personal happiness is my daughter. But I wish I could offer her more than just the daily trip to the playground. People like that can throw money at this and will.

Not all rich folks are Donald Trump’s. Actually, those whom I have met during the time i was in airplane handling mostly were not.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Wishful thinking of those who have nothing. Ah those rich folks are not happy. My experience (from afar) tells me the opposite. As a salaryman in the lower half of the population I can see money equal as freedom, poverty is enslavement of one sort or the other. Not necessarily to a employer but to daily life, where chores, work and every day worry eat up any sort of enjoyment and dreams you may ever have. If you can throw money at this, things change fast.

There has (perhaps not surprising) been research done on this, by Daniel Kahneman no less. It was a very large study of almost 500,000 americans. It showed that happiness increases with income up to a point but not above. In the US context that point was at a yearly income of about USD 75,000. That figure is likely to be different in other countries depending on things like the general cost level and availability of subsidies for services such as health care and education.

That is not surprising as a general statistic, due to the number of skeletons which tend to accumulate in your cupboards as you move into the true uber rich bracket.

Also, there are far fewer true serial enterpreneurs than most would believe. Most of them made their money by exploiting a particular opportunity and cannot repeat it, so they hit the buffers pretty hard eventually – unless they were smart enough to stash some away, which many weren’t (especially in the finance sphere where massive gearing is the name of the game). Or they end up on The Apprentice The few exceptions (I know of some) are pretty remarkable and tend to be a different personality, too.

Airborne_Again wrote:

There has (perhaps not surprising) been research done on this, by Daniel Kahneman no less. It was a very large study of almost 500,000 americans. It showed that happiness increases with income up to a point but not above. In the US context that point was at a yearly income of about USD 75,000. That figure is likely to be different in other countries

In my area of the US, as in many areas, you cannot support a family, make investments for the future etc very well on that income plus benefits so it certainly did not maximize my happiness. That is the salary of a fairly junior engineer, car mechanic etc – so one interpretation is that people are happiest when young and single, with a job! Studies like this don’t mean much more generally IMO.

If I were forced to say what income level is happiest for many people, I’d say $200K, having grown into that job/business by an age that tends to mean grown children, renewed freedom and (hopefully) good health remaining. At that point the pressure comes off but the money remains Some others find happiness with little income and little work, and some who are driven to achieve more in life need more income to do it. I don’t think my view or anybody else’s on the subject of happiness versus income is very meaningful given the infinite number of lifestyles that can be chosen at any income – basically it’s not something that can be reasonably correlated IMO.

Maybe that’s another way of saying that happiness is driven by health and relationships and little else, provided you have enough to live on. And, as Silvaire suggests, the phase of your life when you are most likely to have good health and relatively worry-free relationships is before you get too far into your 30s

I would say it is difficult to put a number to it, but what I would describe as financial means which will provide freedom to a degree is if you are making enough and have enough reserves to be able to live as you like.

In aviation terms, this means being able to afford to fly, to afford to travel from time to time, to afford owning an airplane and being given the freedom to actually use it at your leisure.

As to amounts, that is widely variable depending on where you live. Seeing that the average income alone in Europe varies between 200 and 8000 Euros per month, someone who lives in a 200 Euros/month country can be quite well off with 1000 per month, whereas he’d outright starve elsewhere.