The price of Happiness: $75,000

Same topic, many articles:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668979 <- This one

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668909

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668478

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1667603

Interesting article. Key idea is:

"We suspect that this means, in part, that when people have a lot more money, they can buy a lot more pleasures, but there are some indications that when you have a lot of money, you will savor each pleasure less."

So, our perception of happiness is explained by Weber-Fechner Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law), too, similar to our sensory perceptions: it is logarithmic and saturates after a point.

This is why it is impossible to design a paradise (or hell for that matter) that humans can enjoy indefinitely.

If people understood and believed this, doesn't this bode poorly for recruiting people to work at startups? If you can make 100k at a stable, established software company, and you've already saturated the utility of money, a compensation based argument for working at a startup is hard to make. This bounds the reward for "hitting the lottery" with a successful startup. With small some chance you make a ton of money, and you aren't much happier than if you'd only took the sure bet of a steady income. On the other hand, there is a large chance that you'll actually living under the money-happiness saturation point when the startup fails.

Does it follow that happiness and life satisfaction should be adjusted for inflation?

My interpretation of the findings: High incomes typically demand more time away from people and health-inducing activities (e.g., more time spent at the office and on airplanes). There are different stressors associated with low and high incomes. The holy grail is to find that incomes level that minimizes the number and intensity of stressors while maximizing time spent in activities that you control that bring you pleasure.

Is this per-capita? My salary is higher than that but I'm providing for 5 people, so I get nowhere near that.

It used to be $60,000, but now after adjusted for inflation, your happiness is priced at $75,000.