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There is a "strong correlation", not a "clear correlation". And lets understand, correlation does not imply causation. The obsession with income as a determinant for happiness, is something of a liberal myth, used to push a materialistic agenda.
You don't get that kind of correlation if income is irrelevant. There is no accident that most poor countries have life satisfaction around 3-5, while rich countries have a life satisfaction of 6-8.
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The simplest example one can use would be the Amish. They are very poor, or at least, live a lifestyle which denies itself almost all material benefits. And, the men and women work long hours nearly every day of the week, and they never go on vacations.
Yet, the Amish are much happier than pretty much everyone else in this country.
From what I am aware, there exist no surveys to support that claim. However, even if true they are not really that poor. The reason poverty make us unhappy is because it makes us worry, and prevents us from doing the things we like to do. But if we volountarily choose to not do something, then it should have little impact on happiness.
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Another easy example, just imagine our ancestors(even our distant ancestors). If wealth makes us happy, our ancestors must have been utterly miserable. Right? How did they ever manage not to kill themselves as a result of their misery?
The truth is, your distant ancestors were actually much happier than you. And much healthier than you.
Thats not a source, that is a newspaper article with a headline grap. They have no sources to support the claim.
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Also, be careful about what "statistics" you use to base your views of happiness on. Or specifically, what questions they ask. Many happiness polls ask questions which might appear to have economic underpinnings. Asking a question about whether you'll be "better off in the future", is largely an economic question. It basically asks you if you are optimistic that you'll be wealthier in the future.This
Gallup poll for instance, has the happiest country in the world being Panama, then after that, Costa Rica. With most of Europe being no happier than the Middle-East, Asia, or even Africa.
First off Panama is not that poor. Secondly my statistics doesn't ask about the future, it ask how happy are you on a scale from 1-10. It is you who need to be more careful, because your Gallup poll is not that. They are asking people how satisfied they are with their "purpose", "social", "physical", "financial" and "community", and then they take the number of people who say they are thriving in three areas.
A survey like that has many issues
1. Using words is not good, because the translation of thriving does not have the same meaning in all languages.
2. Just measuring how many who claim three areas are thriving is a silly way to measure it, because someone may think their community is not thriving, but they don't care.
3. People who say 3 areas are thriving is in general very low, even if it was representative you are only comparing the happiest people in each society.
No, we have to use experienced well being on a scale from 1-10. In that scale there is a clear correlation between income and happines.
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Another great example is Japan. Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it is far wealthier than many European countries. Yet Japan tends to score very poorly in happiness statistics. Why?
You can even use the case of China, who has seen its wealth and international status soar over the last couple of decades. Yet, China is less happy now than it was before. Why?
Japan is not far wealthier than most of europe, and is not one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Also, they don't score that poorly on happiness either, they got 6 which is not far away from the european average.
Japan certainly score better than poor asian countries like Bangladesh. What you need to get is that there are severall factors that impact happiness, but income is one of them. If income wasn't a factor, then you wouldn't havse seen the clear correlation between income and happiness.
But what about your chinese example. Your data only goes back to the early 90s, and only include urban workers. But that was a period where urban workers were few, and had many perks. In addition it was a time of great hope. I am quite sure that if China had kept the wealth levels of the 90s, happiness would have declined.
But it didn't decline, what happened was that it declined in the 90s when many public workers lost their protected jobs. But it recovered in the last decade.
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Because income has nothing to do with happiness. Repeat with me, income has nothing to do with happiness. Increasing your income will not make you happier, winning the lottery will not make you happier. It is a myth.
You seem desperate. How about you repeat this "income correlates with happiness, because it is a factor".
And your lottery example show that you really don't get it. Having lots of money does not make you happier than a financially comfortable person. But someone who see their income rise from 20K to 40K will get happier. That is because they don't have to worry so much about finances anymore.
That is clearly supported by the correlation among countries, and the correlation within coutries.
Please continue insisting that mass transit is defined by having trains run every twenty seconds or so.
I didn't define it that way.
But nice job of trying to put words in my mouth.
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The reality is that Norway is less sense than the United States and I can easily live there without a car thanks to the infrastructure. Ditto for Sweden.
Well, I'm happy for you.
I can live in Manhattan and never go anywhere else and not depend on a car, too.
So I take it you live in a largish city in Sweden/Norway without a car, or live in a small town without a car and never go anywhere.
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Your insistence that mass transit is defined by simply having a subway is sophomoric.
I didn't define it that way.
But again, nice job of putting words in my mouth.
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It's a mass transit system and a system comprises of myriad forms of transit including busses, cycling infrastructure, trains etc.
So?
Yeah, I guess bicycling in Norway in February is just a barrel of fun.
Can't wait to do it myself.
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We are not advocating putting a subway in Wyoming
Did I say you were?
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but are advocating improving the transit options in American urban areas and MSA's which by and large are more dense than most Scandinavian cities save Stockholm and Copenhagen.
That's fine.
Are you willing to pay for what you advocate?
Or are you just going to wave a magic wand and have others pay for it for you?
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Congratulations are in order, however. You managed to name and misspell eight Norwegian cities.
No, I didn't.
I actually checked their spellings before I made them.
Or is "Oslo" really "Ouslo" and "Alesunde" really "Allllllesuounde."
I will grant that sometimes English spellings of foreign cities are different -- e.g., "Vienna" for "Wien," but if you think your little nit-picky game is going to work on me, I can assure that it won't.
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Perhaps in your studies you would note that actually Lillehammer and Oslo are quite close and while I'm not particularly sure the train runs three times an hour it is quite easy to get between the two via train.
I'll remember that at midnight when I want to get that special pizza in Lillehammer and I'm in Oslo.
By the way, you have now admitted that I spelled those correctly.
And yet, didn't you say I misspelled all of the Norwegian cities I mentioned? I don't think I mentioned more than eight. I guess I should be glad that you at least admit that they were Norwegian -- lol.
I love arguing with people like you.
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Stop conflating urban transit systems with nation wide transit systems.
Believe it or not, we do have transit in urban cores in America.
But even those cores cover a lot more land than typical European cities. So the transit is not as efficient or affordable.
The Los Angeles/Orange County/Ventura County/San Bernadino County/Riverside County metro area alone covers about 5,000 square miles.
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Going from Tromsø to Ålesund or Stavanger is quite some distance and in a country with a very low population density it would be moronic to have trains going three times an hour given the populations of the cities you mentioned.
I agree.
Where have I argued otherwise?
And by the way, of the eight Norwegian cities whose names you claimed I misspelled, you have now admitted that I spelled five of them correctly.
Minus the little slashes and "o"s, of course.
If that's what bothered you, well, excu-u-u-use me!
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-31-2015 at 04:35 AM..
I would love to give up my car and simply walk or ride a bike to work. The issue of distance can be solved by working close to home. Why are some people in love with the idea of driving a car?
I hardly drive at all.
But then, I live in a walk-able, safe and pretty neighborhood in San Diego with great year-round weather where everything I need and want is in walking distance.
But if I were to want to raise a family in my delightful neighborhood, it would cost me at least $2 million for a big enough house.
And most young families cannot afford that.
So they move inland to suburbs where the weather is hotter and you have to drive -- but on the other hand, they get three times as much house and land as they would get for the same price in my neighborhood.
Scandinavia seems to solve this problem with "high rise parks" that remind me of "low income projects" here in the U.S.
The sad thing is having no interesting places to drive to in your fancy 40 thousand dollar
Mercedes SUV other than the local Walmart or Target, Jack In the Box drive thru, strip mall, McDonald's etc.
Suburban life is so lame.
So don't live there.
America has many more choices than living in the "burbs."
Because making individual cities dense to make public transportation more feasible is not that expensive.
They're trying to "densify" my neighborhood.
It's interesting that in order to do that they are building high rises where the lowest price for a "unit" is $700,000 -- and that doesn't include about $1,500 a month for HOA, concierge and other services.
But the mantra here is "more housing and more density = more affordability."
But I guess more people will be here to walk and ride their fancy bicycles.
The poor will certainly be pleased with all of this.
We'll finally have "diversity" and "affordability"!
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-31-2015 at 04:37 AM..
Not quite sure where you get your statistics but the Norsk Statistisk Sentralbyrå reports that housing prices in Norway for Q1 in Norway average slightly above USD 400,000.
Still expensive, but often times families will choose to live a house just outside the city rather than in an apartment inside it. Urban housing can be incredibly expensive in Oslo and is very scarce in Stockholm.
In Norway property tax is quite low so in fact living in houses is fairly popular.
Also posting pictures is not scientific. Taking a picture taken right over the center of Ã…lesund and a picture of Sacramento taken from some distance promotes the fallacy that Ã…lesund is more dense than Sacramento. In fact, Sacremento has a density of 1800/km whereas Ã…lesund has a density of 482.5/km.
Are you kidding me?
I know Sacramento.
It spreads out all over the place.
Alesund clearly doesn't.
And excuse "moi" for not having a little "o" to put over the "A."
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-31-2015 at 04:38 AM..
And yet, didn't you say I misspelled all of the Norwegian cities I mentioned? I don't think I mentioned more than eight. I guess I should be glad that you at least admit that they were Norwegian -- lol.
I love arguing with people like you.
If you're going to be that way about it, allow me to point out that Viborg - which admittedly, you spelled correctly - is in Denmark.
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