French strike over pensions, Yanks just sit by
What does it take to be happy? About $75,000
| Researchers have put a price on happiness. The French have put themselves on the line for a humane policy. While one American promotes the European way. We trim, blend, and append three 2010 articles from: (1) Los Angeles Times, Sept 6, on happiness by Shari Roan; (2) Los Angeles Times, Sept 8, on pensions by Devorah Lauter; (3) AlterNet, Sept 6, on Social Security by Steven Hill, author of the "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age". |
by Shari Roan, by Devorah Lauter, and by Steven Hill
- What does it take to be happy?
"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain," researchers wrote. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."
People's evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences -- their feelings -- did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress.
Being divorced, being sick, and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one.
While it can't buy happiness, more money can, however, help people view their lives as successful or better.
The authors wrote, "The data do not imply that people will not be happy with a raise from $100,000 to $150,000, or that they will be indifferent to an equivalent drop in income.... What the data suggest is that above a certain level of stable income, individuals' emotional well-being is constrained by other factors in their temperament and life circumstances."
JJS: So when government cuts income, they make citizens suffer.
The BBC's Christian Fraser (Sept 7), describes the scene in France: Huge crowds braved stormy weather across southern parts of France, while demonstrators in Paris and the north enjoyed autumn sunshine. In Paris, protesters shouted through loud-hailers: "Slave-driving? No, no, no. Working more? No, no, no. Fair reforms? Yes, yes, yes."
- French strike over plan to raise retirement age
More than 1 million people went on strike and into the streets of France to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal to raise the legal retirement age.
It's all but French tradition to launch the new school year with a festive protest, slowing trains and forcing newly reopened classrooms to close their doors for lack of teachers. But Tuesday's strike, deemed a success by unions, was seen as a serious attempt to curtail Sarkozy's major proposal to bump the retirement age from 60 to 62.
The strike drew from 1.1 million people, the Interior Ministry said, but unions tallied at as many as 3 million.
Protest signs linked the president to the wealthy elite and referred to suspicions that Labor Minister Eric Woerth helped one of France's richest women evade taxes.
"France found millions to bail out banks, so the money is there," said Melinda Sauger, 29, a middle school teacher. "We pay a lot for our social security benefits. It's our money that we earned, so we should be able to pay for our retirements with that."
French workers in general have more time off and end their careers earlier than the average European, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
"We must seem like aliens to a lot of people because we have a lot of social benefits," Castets, who teaches middle and high school, said as rock music and French ballads played across the packed Place de la Republique in Paris and grilled meat and mojitos were selling cheap.
"A lot of countries envy us because of our quality of life," she said, "which we have thanks to these kinds of benefits" [and strikes].
- Don't Cut Social Security, Double It
Studies show that people in the bottom two income quartiles depend on Social Security for 84% of their retirement income. Even the second richest quartile depends on Social Security for 55% of its retirement income. Only the richest 25% of Americans don't rely heavily on Social Security.
Despite what you may have heard, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security can pay all scheduled benefits out of its own tax revenue stream through at least 2037.
The bigger problem is that Social Security's payout is so meager. Currently it replaces only about 33%-40% of a worker's average wage from the year prior to retirement. In Germany, the pension program replaces 70%.
Doubling Social Security's individual payout would cost about $650 billion annually for the 51 million Americans who receive benefits. Here are some ways to pay for it.
JJS: The writer suggests targeting the rich, make them pay the Social Security tax’s higher rate and closing their loopholes. He also assumes recessions are natural, not a consequence of failed policy -- such as taxes on earnings, sales, and buildings, and subsidies for favored insiders. Get rid of such a revenue policy, replace it with geonomics, and we’d get rid of both recessions and the unearned fortunes that taxists target.
What’s geonomics? Replace counterproductive taxes and addictive subsidies with recovering and sharing the socially-generated rental values of nature and privileges. With all the revenue raised by recovering all our spending for land, resources, licenses, charters, etc, we could do more than fund pensioners. We could all share in the bounty and pay ourselves a Citizens Dividend. While the elderly might not get a bigger share, they might not need it, since their children and social groups would be comfortable and prices would falling with less debt in society (debt being the source of inflation).
Being comfortable, then we all could happy, as happy as comfort can buy.
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Editor Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Convenience and Hindrance in One
Paris Metro's cheaters say …
US Policy Causes Defaults, Quasi US Agency to Fail |
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