Time + Money ≠ Happiness

Trying to make a decision about your life and how to spend the time you have? Well don’t thinking about spending time, in fact don’t let the idea of money- as-time factor into your decision at all.

Professor DeVoe and PhD student Julian House based their conclusions on three experiments. In each, a sub-group of participants was primed, through survey questions, to think about their time in terms of money. This group subsequently showed greater impatience and lower satisfaction during leisure activities introduced during the experiments. However, they also reported more enjoyment and less impatience when they were paid during one of those activities, which was listening to music.

Read more here.

Canadians Like the Occupy Movement

Even the right-leaning Canadian press can’t disagree that the Occupy Movement is a positive thing in and of itself. A new poll reveals that almost 60% of Canadians view the movement in a positive light, while some others tend to have problems because it is “leaderless”.

It’s great to see Canadians (who have not suffered as much as their neighbours to the south) talking about the concerns that the Occupy Movement has brought up. Issues like subsidies to big oil, the problems with current financial markets, joblessness, and even democratic accountability are all being discussed in the mainstream media.

Without the Occupy Movement these issues would in all likely hood not have been brought up. You should go to your locally occupied park and see what you can do to help.

Can’t get to a local occupy camp? Here’s what you can do online.

From the Globe and Mail:

Occupy activists have pitched tents in at least eight Canadian cities, building on a protest movement that started in New York’s financial district nearly two months ago. Participants have no official demands, but are advocating for a variety of social justice and economic issues, including nationalizing Canadian banks, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and increasing the minimum wage. Most say they are frustrated that a small number of people control most of the world’s wealth.

“For many Canadians, they might not necessarily agree with those views, but they think that they are valid. Those are legitimate concerns that are being raised about our democratic and financial system,” Mr. Nanos said.

The most significant demographic that views the Occupy movement favourably is people who are between 18 and 29 years of age, the poll found, which may be reflective of a tough job market for new workers. Nearly 73 per cent of people under 30 said they have a favourable or somewhat favourable impression of the protests.

Read the rest.

Still don’t know how to help? Here’s 10 simple ways to help the Occupy Movement.

Retire at 45

Tim Stobbs is set to retire at 45 because he wants to and he has tips to help you retire early. He has a good approach between balancing life and money with having to do work: essentially find out what you enjoy and be engaged with it and spend/consume as little as possible.

All the money in the world won’t keep boredom at bay. How many TV reruns can you watch? How many rounds of golf can you play? In my case I have too many things I want to do in life to spend my time working until I’m 65. I enjoy writing, love to cook, garden and make my own wine (which is actually good after I learned why I made my first batch undrinkable). I also like to fix up my house and I’m involved in my community as a school board trustee.

Tim’s description of himself on his blog:

Tim also knows he does not need a lot of money to be happy. In fact most of the stuff he loves in life he can get for free from the library. So that is helping out a lot as he tries cutting back to find the perfect balance point between spending money and being happy.

Read his tips at The Star and you can follow his blog at Canadian Dreams.

German Millionaires Support Democracy

Remember those super rich folk from the USA who decided to donate half their money? Well, that’s not the German way – and for good reason!

In an interview with Der Spiegel, a German millionaire explains why he thinks it’s best for the state to decide where money should be spent in a democracy.

SPIEGEL: Forty super wealthy Americans have just announced that they would donate half of their assets, at the very latest after their deaths. As a person who often likes to say that rich people should be asked to contribute more to society, what were your first thoughts?

Krämer: I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That’s unacceptable.

SPIEGEL: But doesn’t the money that is donated serve the common good?

Krämer: It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it’s not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That’s a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?

SPIEGEL: It is their money at the end of the day.

Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal.

Read the rest on Spiegel Online.

The Super Rich Have a Super Nice Pledge

Thirty-eight US billionaires have pledged to give at least half of their total wealth to charity during their life or after their death. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (who have previously donated very large sums of money) have made an impression on other extremely wealth individuals in the USA with their new organization The Giving Pledge.

The campaign was started in June to convince US billionaires to give away at least half of their fortunes either during their lifetimes or after their deaths.

“We’ve really just started but already we’ve had a terrific response,” Mr Buffett said in a statement.

He added: “The Giving Pledge is about asking wealthy families to have important conversations about their wealth and how it will be used.”

Those who pledge their money to “philanthropic causes and charitable organisations” must publicly state their intention through a letter of explanation.

Read more at the BBC.

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