Happines

Some of you will know that the British Prime Minister is spending money to find out what makes us happy, presumably not including drugs, sex & rock and roll.

My simple view was the following recipe:-

(A) Knowing what you want to do

(B) Being able to do it

There should be a third

(C) Minimizing the amount of time doing things you don't like

However my daughter replied

"you may be looking at the happiness thing all wrong - which seems likely given that it is David Cameron's idea. I think 'happiness' is momentary, or situational at least. I think the question is 'content' which I think the PM can't use because we align contentment with lack of drive and/or ambition ' content with your lot' is considered a bad thing, where as being happy is considered good.

But I think it is a more relevant question, I can be very unhappy at this moment, something sad may have happened, but I am overall content. And I agree, knowing what you want and being able to go for it is a key thing in making one content, but knowing you need food and knowing you need to go and queue at a homeless shelter to get it?

We need to think of Maslov's hierarchy of needs (unfortunately), I think there s a point at which poverty and ill health do impact on happiness, although I accept 'money doesn't buy you happiness'."

This moves the original simplistic observation onto a new level.

Tell Ireland to go hang!

There is no way we should be borrowing money to bail out Ireland. Their politicians are a bunch of crooks and they bribe companies to pretend they are based there for tax avoidance.

Their corporation tax rate is 12.5%, by far the lowest in Europe, so lots of companies headquarters
are in Dublin, isn't that funny. I wonder how many of the companies who export to Ireland are based there.

I feel sorry for the Irish people who have been led up the garden path by their bankers and their politicians, let alone the bishops and priests. They do vote for them and it seems often listen to the views of the priesthood, both groups whose only concern is themselves.

Where is Mr Osborne going to find the money, presumably we will have to borrow it, surely we could could just guarantee a loan and let them borrow it! If he is willing to borrow that much let us use it for something really useful , rather than lending each Irish person about £2000.