Happiest Place on Earth (not Disneyland)

[thisoldhippy]

someone got up on the wrong side of the bed...........

[Thor Henning]

Originally Posted by Thor Henning

That is what we read in the news over here.

It's not only in the news. One place to start if you want to compare countries is CIA – The World Factbook.

[Shredman]

There is a theory that all of mankind's disputes relate to two things:

1) Somebody is getting something that I'm not getting, and;
2) My God is better than your God.

That would explain why the narrow gap between rich and poor would correlate with happiness. Once our basic survival needs are met - everything else is gravy. We compare ourselves to our peer group and consider ourselves doing well or poorly only in relation to that group. If I have everything my peers have, I must be doing good. If I have more, then I must be doing great.

By the way, my God is better than your God.

[Seakony]

Originally Posted by Shredman

. We compare ourselves to our peer group and consider ourselves doing well or poorly only in relation to that group. If I have everything my peers have, I must be doing good. If I have more, then I must be doing great.

By the way, my God is better than your God.

Material things are not a way to judge a persons wealth, Most of their stuff is not paid for and are deeply in debt. Most of it is for show. How many people have been found out after they died that they had millions or thousands yet they lived very simple lives and drove old cars? My credit rating is the most important asset I have. My mother preached to me about that. You can walk around with no money in your wallet but if you have good credit,,, you are rich. You can also have plenty of money in you wallet but if you have bad credit, you are poor. what you see is not really what that person is all about. I love it when I see Millionaires such as Gates and Oprah give so much to help the needy an I love it when I see the common person give what they can afford too.

[JudyBluEyes]

"I think Californians consider individual freedom and individual happiness quite important. But they've often sacrificed friends and family in order to move here from someplace else," Hagerty says.

When they arrive here, they find themselves in a culture full of people like themselves -- free spirits for whom it's less important to establish close personal ties than to fulfill individual goals by launching a dot-com, or finding one's inner child, or catching the perfect wave, or whatever.

Wow, that's an awful stereotypical view of the average Califorian!! Maybe he should have interviewed more people who were born here and have family ties and history here than those who have recently arrived with an already set agenda. Sure, since the Gold Rush California has always attracted those with a dream of having it all, and many who have not found it have left. But to those who have stayed and have made a life here family and commuity ties are very important - and very much in evidence.

[TAPPY]

Originally Posted by TAPPY

Hagerty warns readers not to take his chart too seriously. It is, after all, just a statistical overview, one that inevitably blurs dramatic variations in happiness from individual to individual, and from region to region.

One more time...all in fun !!! Home is where the heart is...same thing goes for happiness !!!

[Thor Henning]

Originally Posted by TAPPY

One more time...all in fun !!! Home is where the heart is...same thing goes for happiness !!!

Agree!

At least for most of us...

[Shredman]

Happiness is a warm gun.

John Lennon/Paul McCartney 1968

[Thor Henning]

Originally Posted by Shredman

Happiness is a warm gun.

John Lennon/Paul McCartney 1968

And the chorus sings: Shoot, shoot, bang, bang.

[Cosmo]

You're right. A record number of bankruptcies were filed in the U.S. last year and our local paper (Dallas Morning News) recently published an article about the diminishing middle class and the record number of foreclosures of homes in the DFW area. From published accounts, appears that our rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is disappearing as it bears the burden. We continue to appreciate your international perspective -- hopefully, we can learn something!

BTW, your Cuba trip and pics are awesome! I like the gold rum also -- I make a killer mojito! I'll PM the recipe.

Originally Posted by Thor Henning

What the US lacks may be "a narrow gap between rich and poor".

[Thor Henning]

Originally Posted by Cosmo

BTW, your Cuba trip and pics are awesome! I like the gold rum also -- I make a killer mojito! I'll PM the recipe.

Thanks! I'll like that! Great!

[PlayadelSoul]

Originally Posted by Cosmo

You're right. A record number of bankruptcies were filed in the U.S. last year and our local paper (Dallas Morning News) recently published an article about the diminishing middle class and the record number of foreclosures of homes in the DFW area. From published accounts, appears that our rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is disappearing as it bears the burden. We continue to appreciate your international perspective -- hopefully, we can learn something!

BTW, your Cuba trip and pics are awesome! I like the gold rum also -- I make a killer mojito! I'll PM the recipe.

I would rather be poor in the USA than any other country I have ever visited (and that is more than a few). What is considered under the povery line in the USA, I could live comfortably on, in Mexico. In fact, I almost do.

[Just Lucky]

There is a good article in The Economist aboot the growing gap in income distribution in the US. Here's a quote:

The one truly continuous trend over the past 25 years has been towards greater concentration of income at the very top. The scale of this shift is not visible from most popular measures of income or wages, as they do not break the distribution down finely enough. But several recent studies have dissected tax records to investigate what goes on at the very top.
The figures are startling. According to Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Thomas Piketty of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the share of aggregate income going to the highest-earning 1% of Americans has doubled from 8% in 1980 to over 16% in 2004. That going to the top tenth of 1% has tripled from 2% in 1980 to 7% today. And that going to the top one-hundredth of 1%—the 14,000 taxpayers at the very top of the income ladder—has quadrupled from 0.65% in 1980 to 2.87% in 2004.
Put these pieces together and you do not have a picture of ever-widening inequality but of what Lawrence Katz of Harvard University, David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Melissa Kearney of the Brookings Institution call a polarisation of the labour market. The bottom is no longer falling behind, the top is soaring ahead and the middle is under pressure

The entire article is here:http://www.economist.com/world/displ...ory_id=7055911