Posted on 11/26/2006 7:08:37 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - Does money buy happiness? It's sometimes said that scientists have found no relationship between money and happiness, but that's a myth, says University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener.
The connection is complex, he says. But in fact, very rich people rate substantially higher in satisfaction with life than very poor people do, even within wealthy nations, he says.
"There is overwhelming evidence that money buys happiness," said economist Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England. The main debate, he said, is how strong the effect is.
Oswald recently reported a study of Britons who won between $2,000 and $250,000 in a lottery. As a group, they showed a boost in happiness averaging a bit more than 1 point on a 36-point scale when surveyed two years after their win, compared to their levels two years before they won.
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel-Prize winner and Princeton economist, and colleagues recently declared that the notion that making a lot of money will produce good overall mood is "mostly illusory."
They noted that in one study, people with household incomes of $90,000 or more were only slightly more likely to call themselves "very happy" overall than were people from households making $50,000 to $89,999. The rates were 43 percent versus 42 percent, respectively. (Members of the high-income group were almost twice as likely to call themselves "very happy" as people from households with incomes below $20,000.)
But other studies, rather than asking for a summary estimate of happiness, follow people through the day and repeatedly record their feelings. These studies show less effect of income on happiness, Kahneman and colleagues said.
There is still another twist to the money-happiness story. Even though people who make $150,000 are considerably happier than those who make $40,000, it's not clear why, says psychologist Richard E. Lucas of Michigan State University.
Does money make you happier? Or does being happier in the first place allow you to earn more money later, maybe by way of greater creativity or energy? Or does some other factor produce both money and happiness? There's evidence for all three interpretations, Lucas says.
In any case, researchers say any effect of money on happiness is smaller than most daydreamers assume.
"People exaggerate how much happiness is bought by an extra few thousand," Oswald said. "The quality of relationships has a far bigger effect than quite large rises in salary.... It's much better advice, if you're looking for happiness in life, to try to find the right husband or wife rather than trying to double your salary."
You said it!! You know I have lots of gifs.......
heh
I have three little furry bundles of love too. They were all strays, but one was hit by a car and had to have over $1000 in surgery. He's fine now, though. Happiness is waking up on a Saturday morning, sun streaming in the bedroom window, and three cats curled up on the bed with you, blinking sleepily and purring.
The most difficult part for me was finding the right someone who is also rich...
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Yeah but I think they make an exception if you claim hardship. Actually you can claim bankruptcy on anything, you just don`t pay them lol! I mean what are they going to do? They cant do anything except sue you and most won`t because it isn`t worth it, unless you owe a huge sum. Only the IRS can really screw you over. They`ll garner wages, take stuff you own, take conrol of your bank account, and even send you to jail. Look at Wesley Snipes, that dude refuses to return to the US because he knows they`ll stick it right to him once he does. Like the saying goes, all you have to do is die and pay taxes. I put die first because they still make you pay once your dead.
It's very difficult to get a student loan discharged in bankruptcy, even when claiming hardship.
The U.S. Dept of Education can also garnish wages to repay a defaulted student loan.
They also can take any of your tax refunds or any federal payments (even social security) and apply it toward your loan until it is repaid.
Well a guy I use to drive a taxi with (so much for his degree) said he got his student loan dismissed through bankruptcy, and I know for a fact he didn`t pay that thing off for years, but it could be they couldn`t touch him because he drove a taxi which he was paid in cash so I guess he skipped by not having a bank account? although I can imagine he never got any tax returns at the end of the year.
I believe what you say though, I wouldn`t doubt it for a second. It`s unreal the racket these schools got going on, and it really ticks me off.
The way I see it, you have to figure if each student is paying about $40k a year, probably two or three students would cover a Professors salary. Now how many teachers does each student deal with each semester, maybe 6 or 7? So that means about 12 to 21 students would be needed to cover all the salaries of the teachers for that one semester, but you know for a school like NYU there are a hell of lot more than 21 students...
I looked it up, in 2004 NYU had accepted 10,000 new students (34,000 applied!) so that is about $400,000,000 per year (holy cr*p, is that right? Let me check it again) Yes it is right...they are pulling in $400 million bucks!!! each year for sophmores alone, this is unreal.
Why the hell isn`t this regulated, laws about this? Isn`t this racketeering, blackmailing people for education? And people wonder why NYU is buying up real estate all over the place, meanwhile the guy who graduates and has to drive a taxi part time because making $60k a year in a starting position couldn`t support a family of one in NYC never mind a family of 5 gets his credit destroyed, not to mention like you said his wages garnished and his taxes hijacked.
And you know what really ticks me off? These slimebags running these schools are the very same slimebag liberals who open their mouths anytime the country has to defend itself. These same liberal pigs running colleges like NYU and Columbia are the biggest wads when it comes to supporting terrorism (like Columbia Professor Nicholas De Genova who wished a million Mogadishus on our US troops), Hugo Chavez, socialism, yet there they are the biggest hypocritical capitalist pigs you`d ever want to meet.
Well, if the taxi driver filed for bankruptcy before 1998 he could have gotten his loans discharged, if they were old enough (7 years old or older). But in 1998 the law changed and filing for bk usually doesn't get the loans discharged.
As far as student loans go, well, the borrower signed the promissory note, which is a binding legal document--he must repay the debt, even for an overpriced education.
At least NYU is a real college--people sometimes pay $40K just to go to dog grooming schools, blackjack dealer schools, beauty schools, truck driving schools--you name it.
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