Don't worry, the government will figure out a way to get their hands on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackgang
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Don't worry, the government will figure out a way to get their hands on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackgang
The surplus is pobly in T bonds anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Norton
Here is an article. I want to corroborate that this letter was sent out by the Social Security Administration (SSA). If not sent out, I'll delete this post and article. I'm checking now.
However, this is a true and serious topic - depending on - when you were born.
Links: RealClearMarkets - Watching Social Security Eat the Young AliveQuote:
December 7, 2009
Watching Social Security Eat the Young Alive
By Bill Frezza
My 26 year old son got the most extraordinary letter from the Social Security Administration last week. In plain English it admitted that the system was a Ponzi scheme destined for bankruptcy more than a decade before he reaches retirement age. It warned that if he is to have any hope of retiring he'd better start saving on his own. Anyone who wasn't personally hypnotized by FDR knows this to be true. Yet I was still surprised that such a frank government confession didn't make national news.
The two-page pamphlet entitled "What young workers should know about Social Security and saving" reminds us that 50 million, or one in six, Americans will collect more than $614 Billion dollars in Social Security benefits this year. It informs young people that the Security Taxes they now pay go into a "Trust Fund" that is used to pay current beneficiaries. Paying off early investors with funds taken from later investors is precisely how Wikipedia defines a Ponzi scheme. The pamphlet advises that the Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that the "Trust Fund" will be depleted before my son's 54th birthday. Because people are living longer and the birth rate is low, it goes on, taxes paid by workers in the future will not be enough to pay the benefits promised in his personalized retirement account statement enclosed with the pamphlet. Imagine what hell would break loose if Schwab or Fidelity Investments enclosed a confession like this when they mailed investors their 401(k) statements.
On top of the negative rate of return young people paying into Social Security are expected to suffer, the pamphlet concludes that my son should plan on taking an additional 24% haircut on the benefits promised in his statement. This is the same healthy young kid being told that he will soon have to buy an artificially overpriced health insurance policy so his premiums can be redistributed to aging Baby Boomers lobbying Congress for free stuff.
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/12/472.jpg
Given the fact that Social Security will be bankrupt before my son even reaches my age, the pamphlet directs him to a handy web calculator that shows how much he will have to save every week if he hopes to retire on his own. Play with it for a few minutes and you realize that there is only one field in the calculator that really matters, and that is the rate of inflation. Plug in an annual inflation rate of one or two percent and the numbers look pretty reasonable as compound interest works its magic. But stick in the double digit inflation figures that were in vogue when Jimmy Carter was president and a funny thing happens. In order to prepare for retirement, young people would have to save more than they make!
Given the Vesuvius of cash the Fed pumped into the economy to disguise the real estate debacle, what do you think the odds are that inflation is going to stay at one or two percent?
Why do kids put up with this? Last time I checked they were old enough to vote. An entire generation is being systematically robbed by their parents with nary a peep. Why aren't they marching in the streets like we did? When they do show up at the polls like sheep ready to be shorn, they pull the lever for kumbaya politicians promising to stick them with the bill for an ever-expanding menu of unfunded middle class entitlements.
There only conclusion I can come to is that we Baby Boomers have infantilized our children into idiocy.
Our kids got so used to being taken care of, educated, clothed, entertained, and driven to the mall that they somehow got the idea that this life of Reilly would go on forever. Little did they know that we were luring them into an adulthood of intergenerational slavery. Baby Boomers made a mess out of what was once the most productive economy in human history. Rather than atoning for our errant ways by paying our own bills, we seem determined to use Congress to squeeze every last bit of cash out of anyone we can get our hands on before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Après nous, le Déluge.
Impoverished by our incessant demands for free government services, our children will most likely get revenge by not providing us with any grandchildren. Even if they wanted kids, how will they afford them if half their paycheck is confiscated to take care of us? As the most self-absorbed generation in American history, I suppose Baby Boomers will find it easy to live out their days bereft of grandchildren, much as the French and Italians have. Can this really be the Great Society we've been promising to bequeath to posterity?
Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm.
And Social Security falls under disability claims, too. I know A LOT of people on SSI disability. And more are piling on.
LInk & Entire: Job losses send disability claims soaring - The Elkhart Project- msnbc.comQuote:
Job losses send disability claims soaring
Jump to...
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Data
Adversity index
With filings up nearly 30 percent in two years, some fear system is overburdened
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Jennifer Shephard / The Elkhart TruthMichael Spratt, 57, says he has limited use of his shoulder and other injuries that leave him unable to work.
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Jason White
updated 8:16 a.m. ET Dec. 17, 2009
ELKHART, Ind.— With an aching shoulder and sore hip, Michael Spratt figured he’d have to apply for disability benefits someday. He just didn’t think that day would come so soon.
The 57-year-old was laid-off from his job unloading chemicals from tanker trucks at the Rollie Williams Paint Spot in Elkhart, Ind., in January. The work involved some heavy-lifting, and Spratt said that over the past couple of years he couldn’t do it without assistance.
“Without the help, I couldn’t have worked. The company, they more or less put up with me, because I worked there for 20 years. But it got to the point where if I had to work by myself, I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Spratt said.
With business slowing, Spratt found himself out of a job along with more than a dozen colleagues. He doesn’t fault his old bosses for letting him go.
“I look at it as a blessing, because I know’d the day was coming that I’m not going to be able to work anymore,” he said.
Now, along with millions of other Americans, he’s turning to the disability system for support, creating an unexpected surge in applications.
According to the Social Security Administration, which runs the two main federal disability programs, new claims for disability benefits rose nearly 17 percent nationwide in fiscal year 2009, to 3 million. Disability filings are projected to rise another 10 percent in fiscal 2010, to 3.3 million new claims.
These applicants aim to join the roughly 12 million Americans who received disability benefts at a total cost of $161 billion in fiscal year 2009, according to the latest figures from Social Security.
‘A big mess’
Advocates and officials say the rising claims are driven by two main factors: the aging of the baby boomer generation and the slumping economy.
“The average age of disability we see nationwide is 50, so the baby boomers have already reached their peak years of disability. That by itself has been driving up volume big-time over the past decade,” said Jim Allsup, founder and CEO of Allsup Inc., a national disability representation firm. “Then they just went into the stratosphere because of the recession.”
With so many new claims being filed, Allsup is worried that the Social Security system can’t handle them all.
“Basically, it’s a big mess,” he said.
A lot sooner that predicted. And the 77 million baby boomers just started hitting the rolls.
Raising taxes is the only method. These entitlements won't be cut.
Link & Entire Next in line for a bailout: Social Security - Feb. 2, 2010Quote:
Next in line for a bailout: Social Security
By Allan Sloan, senior editor at largeFebruary 2, 2010: 10:27 AM ET
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.
Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it has done for decades, our nation's biggest social program needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing -- in other words, a taxpayer bailout.
Ah who cares. Milkman's Yellowstone volcano eruption will be here any day now. I've been training my pet parrot how to wear a filter mask.
Will Baby Boomers Bankrupt Social Security?
Not if the Death Panels don't get 'em first, eh?:confused:
Thanks for the note, Boon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boon Mee
I read the article in the NY Times this morning. As noted, "some" claim SS is OK.....there won't be any changes.
Demographics = votes.
I'll sit back, and watch the implosion.
First the feds have to pay back the billions that they have used in the general fund, and then we be OK for awhile, I can't have over 10 or 15 years left anyway and then it can go belly up far as I care.
Does anybody hear that "sucking sound."
This will be an issue more and more, in the coming years.
Link & Entire: The New York Times > Log InQuote:
Social Security to Start Cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 15, 2010
Filed at 12:08 a.m. ET
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (AP) -- The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.
It's time to start cashing them in.
For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits -- billions more each year.
Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes -- nearly $29 billion more.
Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs -- in the form of Treasury bonds -- which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.
Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
Social Security's shortfall will not affect current benefits. As long as the IOUs last, benefits will keep flowing. But experts say it is a warning sign that the program's finances are deteriorating. Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there's concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.
''This is not just a wake-up call, this is it. We're here,'' said Mary Johnson, a policy analyst with The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. ''We are not going to be able to put it off any more.''
For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.
Remember Al Gore's ''lockbox,'' the one he was going to use to protect Social Security? The former vice president talked about it so much during the 2000 presidential campaign that he was parodied on ''Saturday Night Live.''
Gore lost the election and never got his lockbox. But to illustrate the government's commitment to repaying Social Security, the Treasury Department has been issuing special bonds that earn interest for the retirement program. The bonds are unique because they are actually printed on paper, while other government bonds exist only in electronic form.
They are stored in a three-ring binder, locked in the bottom drawer of a white metal filing cabinet in the Parkersburg offices of Bureau of Public Debt. The agency, which is part of the Treasury Department, opened offices in Parkersburg in the 1950s as part of a plan to locate important government functions away from Washington, D.C., in case of an attack during the Cold War.
One bond is worth a little more than $15.1 billion and another is valued at just under $10.7 billion. In all, the agency has about $2.5 trillion in bonds, all backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. But don't bother trying to steal them; they're nonnegotiable, which means they are worthless on the open market.
More than 52 million people receive old age or disability benefits from Social Security. The average benefit for retirees is a little under $1,200 a month. Disabled workers get an average of $1,100 a month.
Social Security is financed by payroll taxes -- employers and employees must each pay a 6.2 percent tax on workers' earnings up to $106,800. Retirees can start getting early, reduced benefits at age 62. They get full benefits if they wait until they turn 66. Those born after 1960 will have to wait until they turn 67.
Social Security's financial problems have been looming for years as the nation's 78 million baby boomers approached retirement age. The oldest are already there. As that huge group of people starts collecting benefits -- and stops paying payroll taxes -- Social Security's trust funds will shrink, running out of money by 2037, according to the latest projection from the trustees who oversee the program.
The recession is making things worse, at least in the short term. Tax receipts are down from the loss of more than 8 million jobs, and applications for early retirement benefits have spiked from older workers who were laid off and forced to retire.
Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration, says the crisis has been years in the making. ''If this helps get people to look more seriously at that in the nearer term, that's probably a good thing. But it's only really a punctuation mark on the fact that we have longer-term financial issues that need to be addressed.''
In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.
For the budget year that ends in September, Social Security is projected to collect $677 million in taxes and spend $706 million on benefits and expenses.
Social Security will also collect about $120 billion in interest on the trust funds, according to the CBO projections, meaning its overall balance sheet will continue to grow. The interest, however, is paid by the government, adding even more to the budget deficit.
While Congress must shore up the program, action is unlikely this year, said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who just took over last week as chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees Social Security.
''The issues required to address the long-term solvency needs of Social Security can be done in a careful, thoughtful and orderly way and they don't need to be done in the next few months,'' Pomeroy said.
The national debt -- the amount of money the government owes its creditors -- is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.
Good luck to the politician who reneges on that debt, said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who is now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
''Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America,'' Kennelly said. ''They're as solid as what we owe China and Japan.''
Yes, there is money in the SS trust fund, but the projections for incoming revenue and payouts is hitting 0 and negative ahead of time.
With continued economic "contraction" in the US, the situation may be accelerated. Highly likely.
Link & Entire: NYT: Social Security payout to exceed revenue - The New York Times- msnbc.comQuote:
Social Security payout to exceed pay-in this year
Threshold was not expected to cross until at least 2016
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/01/395.jpg
By Mary Williams Walsh
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gifupdated 12:12 a.m. ET March 25, 2010
The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hammered jobs, home prices and now Social Security.
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.
The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because millions of jobs have disappeared, leaving fewer paychecks to tax.
Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.
“When the level of the trust fund gets to zero, you have to cut benefits,” Alan Greenspan, architect of the plan to rescue the Social Security program the last time it got into trouble, in the early 1980s, said on Wednesday.
That episode was more dire because the fund could have fallen to zero in a matter of months. But partly because of steps taken in those years, and partly because of many years of robust economic growth, the latest projections show the program will not exhaust its funds until about 2037.
Still, Mr. Greenspan, who later became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said: “I think very much the same issue exists today. Because of the size of the contraction in economic activity, unless we get an immediate and sharp recovery, the revenues of the trust fund will be tracking lower for a number of years.”
SS is finally getting out in the MSM. Medicare, too....
Telling us what some of us have known for decades.
YouTube - Stossel: Stop Stealing From Americas Children
[quote=raycarey;272435]SS as we know it today is at death's door.
IMO within 5 years there will be means testing, the age to qualify for benefits will be increased, and (perhaps in more than 10 years) those benefits will significantly decrease.
someone on the national stage is eventually going to have to make this clear to the american public.
MM we're about the same age, and when i was a teenager i distinctly remember hearing that our generation would not see the same benefits as our grandpare
i am in complete agreement . this era will be a fond memory .
those were the day,s my friend ..
logic is to the U.K. goverment .:ourrules:Quote:
Originally Posted by lom
what monoganny is to tiger woods
those born after 1959 .Quote:
Originally Posted by Storekeeper
will have to wait till the age of 68 ,
before they have goverment pensions .
^ Bart,
Is it 68?
I thought it was 67.
Thanks.
Here is an article from April, 2010.
Will notes the state changing the rules for younger/newer workers - because the money isn't there.
And then the elephant in the room: Social Security.
Some politicians are finally speaking about it publicly: raising the retirement age.
Also, 50% of Americans choose to get SS at 62. This was never intended to be the age, and it compounds the woes.
$17 Trilliong dollars underfunded, that we know of.
Link & Entire: washingtonpost.comQuote:
Only a brave few acknowledge an entitlement crisis
By George F. Will
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Apuzzle from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? A puzzle from the prairie: If an earthquake occurs in Illinois and no one notices, is it really a seismic event?
Gov. Pat Quinn called it a "political earthquake" when the state's legislature recently voted -- by margins of 92 to 17 in the House and 48 to 6 in the Senate -- to reform pensions for state employees. There is now a cap on the amount of earnings that can be used as the basis for calculating benefits. In some states, employees game the system by "spiking" their last year's earnings by accumulating vast amounts of overtime pay.
An even more important change -- a harbinger of America's future -- is that most new Illinois state government employees must work until age 67 to be eligible for full retirement benefits. Those already on the state payroll can still retire at 55 with full benefits.
The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly becomes a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so Congress in 1956 entitled women to collect benefits at 62 and in 1961 extended the entitlement to men. Today, nearly half of Social Security recipients choose to begin getting benefits at 62. This is a grotesque perversion of a program that was never intended to subsidize retirees for a third to a half of their adult lives.
It also reflects the decadent dependence that the welfare state encourages: Because of the displacement of responsibility from the individual to government, 48 percent of workers over 55 have total savings and investments of less than $50,000.
Because most states' pension plans compute their present values -- and minimize required current contributions -- by assuming an unrealistic 8 percent annual return on investments, the cumulative funding gap of state pensions already may be $3 trillion and certainly is rising. For example, Wednesday's New York Times contained this attention-seizing bulletin: "An independent analysis of California's three big pension funds has found a hidden shortfall of more than half a trillion dollars, several times the amount reported by the funds and more than six times the value of the state's outstanding bonds." It is not news that California is America's home-grown Greece, but the condition of the three funds, which serve 2.6 million current and retired public employees, is going to exacerbate the state's decline by requiring significantly higher taxpayer contributions.
A recent debate on "Fox News Sunday" illustrated the differences between the few politicians who are, and the many who are not, willing to face facts. Marco Rubio, the former speaker of Florida's House of Representatives who is challenging Gov. Charles Crist for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, made news by stating the obvious.
Asked how the nation might address the projected $17.5 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, Rubio said that we should consider two changes for people 10 or more years from retirement. One would raise the retirement age. The other would alter the calculation of benefits: Indexing them to inflation rather than wage increases would substantially reduce the system's unfunded liabilities.
And then there's this from MoveOn.
Which bias do you trust?
Quote:
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits-and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago.2 Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago.3 What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly-since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half.4 But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come.5 Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income.6 But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.7 The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market-which would have been disastrous-but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It's not just wrong-it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.8
Defeating these myths is the first step to stopping Social Security cuts. Can you share this list now?
Thanks for all you do. -Nita, Duncan, Daniel, Kat, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security
2. "The Straight Facts on Social Security,"Economic Opportunity Institute, September 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89704&id=2...88-PjmRYox&t=5
3. "Social Security and the Age of Retirement," Center for Economic and Policy Research, June 2010
Social Security and the Age of Retirement | Reports
4. "More on raising the retirement age," Washington Post, July 8, 2010
Ezra Klein - More on raising the retirement age
5. "Social Security is sustainable," Economic and Policy Institute, May 27, 2010
Social Security is sustainable
6. "Maximum wage contribution and the amount for a credit in 2010," Social Security Administration, April 23, 2010
Maximum wage contribution and the amount for a credit in 2010.
7. "Trust Fund FAQs," Social Security Administration, February 18, 2010
Trust Fund FAQs
8."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security
Source:
http://pol.moveon.org/ssmyths?id=221...88-PjmRYox&t=1
^ Very funny. Who's paying for these benefits? The govt by printing more money? The coffers are secure because they are full of US T bonds? That's even funnier. Make the rich pay? Yep, kill those capitalist pigs who create jobs! Make them pay. Too funny. More socialist drivel.
Everybody should pay their fair share towards society, in the US that equates to the corporate world putting up a lot more than they do now, you cant have both a well-functioning society with a healthy happy workforce living in secure and healthy environment which in turn makes them produce more high quality products, and at the same time be unwilling to pay the price.
That other kind of capitalist system works, as proven in countries with a better economy, much less crime, addiction, and hopeless slums than in US, those Countries have a much more happy content, healthy and generally better educated population, despite an overall much higher taxation percentage both for business and privates.
The link to the resent Forbes investigation about the happiest people in the world is down below, wealth (high GDP) has a marked effect, but clearly that is wealth more evenly distributed, and not concentrated on much fewer hands like in the US.
If the corporate kingpins in US really where the patriots they claim to be they would share their gains with society thus creating a happy well-educated healthy US, but they are in reality hypocritical lying scumbags, who's only real shortsighted interest is to fill relatively few private bank-accounts to the max possible, US culture has reached a pinnacle of egoism where you fight only for yourself no matter the consequences long term for others around you and your country.
:)
The World's Happiest Countries - Forbes.com
Happiness
The World's Happiest Countries
Francesca Levy, 07.14.10, 05:00 PM EDT
By and large, rich countries are happier--and that's no coincidence.
In the wake of their World Cup loss, residents of the Netherlands may be feeling depressed. But there's reason to believe they won't be done in by the agony of defeat: According to a recent poll, the country is one of the happiest in the world.
Championship-winning Spain, on the other hand, was swept with euphoria and national pride, but that may have been an unfamiliar feeling. The country ranks No. 17 of 21 European countries in terms of happiness.
The fact is good times probably have more to do with the size of your wallet than the size of your trophy shelf. The five happiest countries in the world--Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands--are all clustered in the same region, and all enjoy high levels of prosperity.
In Depth: The World's Happiest Countries:
"The Scandinavian countries do really well," says Jim Harter, a chief scientist at Gallup, which developed the poll. "One theory why is that they have their basic needs taken care of to a higher degree than other countries. When we look at all the data, those basic needs explain the relationship between income and well-being."
Should I read anything into the fact that this article doesn't mention that the top six for happiness are quite famously socialist countries?
Behind the Numbers:
Quantifying happiness isn't an easy task. Researchers at the Gallup World Poll went about it by surveying thousands of respondents in 155 countries, between 2005 and 2009, in order to measure two types of well-being.
First they asked subjects to reflect on their overall satisfaction with their lives, and ranked their answers using a "life evaluation" score between 1 and 10. Then they asked questions about how each subject had felt the previous day. Those answers allowed researchers to score their "daily experiences"--things like whether they felt well-rested, respected, free of pain and intellectually engaged.
Subjects that reported high scores were considered "thriving." The percentage of thriving individuals in each country determined our rankings. For a complete list of countries surveyed, including the percentages thriving and their daily happiness scores, click here.
Money Matters:
The Gallup researchers found evidence of what many have long suspected: money does buy happiness--at least a certain kind of it. In a related report, they studied the reasons why countries with high gross domestic products won out for well-being, and found an association between life satisfaction and income.
^ Don't the Scandies also have the highest suicide rates?
6.2 % of your pay, three hours for you, 3 from the companyQuote:
Originally Posted by barbaro
Best insurance you will ever buy. When you are 65, to buy an annuity which pays you $1500 a month for life you will have to put in about $300,000 - [at]400,000. Not easy for most people to do.
That's all? Sheesh, in Canada, you need about $500k to get $400 a month.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lorenzo
A bit of a myth based on poor comprehension of how data is to be interpreted. To take Japan, Seppoku (suicide) is an old honorable tradition, ie the honurable way out of a fix, so the high rate of suicides in Japan can to a great extend be contributed to old cultural tradition. So to understand it as people are more miserable in Japan would be wrong, it's just that suicide is the solution a greater % of the miserable choses due to tradition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon
Finland nr.14 - with Countries like Russia Japan Hungary Sri lanka higher on the list.
Sweeden nr.29 with Countries like Belgium France switzerland China Austria Hong Kong New Zealand Higher on the list.
Norway nr.39 with Countries like Slovakia Cuba Iceland Canada Portugal higher on the list.
Denmark nr.43 on the list with Countries like USA and Luxembourg higher on the list.
List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So there is a fair spread I would say, with the added factor that the statistic data is highly accurate from the scandinavian Countries while same data from many other countries is with a high degree of uncertainty which places them lower on the list than the real situation would warrant if data was collected more comprehensibly and accurate.
Further more you have cultural and religious factors to meter in, some places it is far more problematic for the individual and their family if someone commits suicide some places it is directly forbidden for religious reasons and you don't go to "heaven" ect. ect..
Scandinavian society's is far more pragmatic in questions about life and death due to better education, and not so bound up in religious beliefs and cultural can do's, and can not do's.
^ That's a pretty sophisticated and convoluted way of squirming out of agreeing with me, innit? :)
Groups twist and distort data to get whatever result they want. Japan, seppuku (pls note spelling :) ) That's really fekin funny. That was a samurai tradition, but pls give me facts they perform it today as a normal means of offing oneself. You know why? Coz you don't die right away when you cut your guts out and it's really messy. But you do suffer. It's a two-slice motion, too. That's why samurai always had a "second" who chopped their heads off.
Did you know that JNR, the national train co, fines the family of anyone who commits suicide by jumping in front of a train? All Japs know it. Good deterrent to killing yourself that way as folks there don't want to inconvenience their fams. Takes hours to clean up the mess and the Jpn do like their trains to run on time.