Can Money Buy You Happiness?

Can Money Buy You Happiness?

Let me examine the case “Can Money Buy You Happiness?” by analyzing the life of typical rich children.

The general belief is that the rich tend to pamper their children by buying them all sorts of “toys”, while the poorer children do not do this because they cannot afford to. It is usually presented in stories – especially in movies – that rich children are bad while those from poorer families struggle all their lives. Consequently it may be believed that children from rich families are happier than those from poorer ones. This may be the case in some instances, but is definitely not always true.

Children can be happy whether they are from rich or poor families. We hear of cases where poor families make all sorts of sacrifices so that their children – or one of them – can have a certain comfort. Fathers are known to work at extra jobs so that their children can have expensive toys for Christmas or for their birthdays. On the other hand, the children of the rich are not always given everything they want. Rich fathers are known to make their children work for a living and earn their pocket money. Other fathers have refused to give their children expensive toys so that they will learn the value of hard work. Hence it is not the riches of the parents that can make the children happy but what the parents do to the child.

Happiness can never be equated with having money or having rich parents for that matter. It is possible that poor parents have a close relationship with their child. In this way the child has something far better; it has love. Having enough love, the child will be happy – at least much happier than if it did not receive love. On the other hand it is possible that the child of rich parents has everything that she wants but does not get the love and concern that she needs. The parents of rich children are sometimes too busy spending their money and earning more. Often we hear stories of “poor little rich children”. Though many of the stories we hear are fiction, some of them are real indeed.

Sometimes the parents of rich children believe that their child will be happy if he is provided with everything he needs. They try to substitute money for love and care.  In such instances, the rich child can be very happy indeed. In addition, children brought up in this way tend to be very poor in relationships. They do not know how to value things like friendships. Such a child is poor indeed, in spite of being financially rich. Using money and surrounding himself with all sorts of toys the child is apt to grow up with the wrong sense of what is true happiness. There, one day when he realizes that money does not always buy happiness, he will not know which way to turn.

Here children from rich families may not always be happier than those from poorer families. In fact both are capable of being happy, with or without money.

MONEY   VS   HAPPINESS

An ancient Chinese saying says: "Find a job you; enjoy doing and you will not have to work a day in your life". The meaning is that you will be so busy enjoying you work that you will not consider it work at all. Certainly this is a realistic statement and we might add that a person who enjoys his job is likely to be a happier and better person than one who sees work as a drudgery or worse still as a necessary discomfort.

Time and again it has been argued by philosophers that the purpose of life is to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. Looking at it in this way, it is obvious that humans automatically look for what gives them pleasure. In that case, it might be true that we look for work that we enjoy. If so then it is advisable that we seek out jobs that we enjoy, though they may not pay very well, rather than choose a less enjoyable job which pays well. The argument here sounds simplistic: Is this always possible? Can we all find jobs that are enjoyable?

One certainty is that money is also important. There can be little happiness for a person who does not have enough money. For a person to enjoy life he certainly needs money and if the means of obtaining money is somewhat unpleasant - like working in a mortuary – or even difficult - like working as a manual worker, can we say that he should abandon his job and seek a job that he would enjoy? An immediate difficulty that comes to mind would be that if all of us seek only jobs that are enjoyable, there are jobs that no one will find enjoyable and no one would like to do these. What will happen to the country - and the world - if everyone wants to be a musician and no one wants to be a mortician or a coal miner? There certainly are jobs that no one can enjoy doing.

A good suggestion could be that we should learn how to enjoy what we are doing, rather than look for what we would enjoy doing. This may not be as unreasonable as it sounds. It is like saying that if you cannot marry someone you love, then learn to love the person you marry. 

Motivation by Money

It should be easy to love a job that gives you a lot of money. One could think of all the pleasures one could have and realize that it is the job that makes these possible and from there see that the job is enjoyable after all. A psychologist tells us that what gives us pleasure is a matter of programming. We have been programmed to listen to a certain type of music; like certain foods and even people. If this is true that it would be possible to programmed us to enjoy our jobs - whatever they are. So, if there is a well-paying job that we cannot see as enjoyable, but which gives a great deal of money, we can see it as enjoyable.

Hence we could say that though it is true that enjoying a job is more important than money, it would be wonderful if we enjoyed the job and earned a lot of money from it. Enjoying ourselves is a matter of attitude: "We can find enjoyment anywhere if we look hard enough. But if given a definite choice that we can only have one or the other, I would agree that enjoying a job is more important than money.

Is Marriage the Right Way?

Is Marriage the Right Way?

Most of us never really had a choice of how the world should be run. For example, on the question of whether we should marry instead of just procreating like animals do no one really asked us before passing the law, that only legalized marriages will be recognized. We see that for matters of rights, especially, marriage is an advantage.  In Singapore, couples who do not marry do not marry do not automatically inherit each others property nor can they claim anything from the Central Provident Fund (CPF) of a surviving partner. Another situation is that only married couples can be co-owners of Housing and Development Broad (HDB – a government housing scheme) homes. To save all this trouble it is important for couples to marry; the law has made it necessary.

Do people really have to marry in order to live as a couple? This can be argued but as the world in run today, it is certainly a disadvantage not to. From all religions point of view as well as our conservative society angle, living together without marriage is a big crime and unacceptable.  Marriage gives a bond strength; the couple is said to live honorably and their children are given due respect by others. On the practical side the spouses and the children stand to gain from the support given by the government to legal marriages. Furthermore it is morally correct by the standards of all organized religions.

On the issue of whether couples should be bound to each other permanently there are several advantages why they should. Children do not ask to be born but are brought into the world by their parents. Once couples becomes parents – whether they are married or not - they have now involved an innocent party into their world. Automatically it becomes their moral responsibility to give their children the best they can. Time and again it has been proven that children of divorce are traumatized. Man is one of the animals that take care of his young for many years. This is because his young need him for a long time. Since both parents are necessary for this, they are morally bound to stay together for the children’s sake. It is unethical for any one partner to want to run away from this responsibility.

The natural question that now rises is whether couples must stay together if their children are grown up or if the couple has no children. Looking at the practical side of things, we see that the need may be discussed. If the couple decides not to stay together after they have no joint responsibility and if they, for whatever reason, do not wish to stay together anymore, their marriage could be annulled. In other words, if there is no third party involved, there seems to be no practical reason for marriage to be a permanent institution.

Marriage life is a new life where people want to live more for their new family members!  Marriage is an institution and tendency of human couples to live together is something that we have evolved into. We are one of the few animals who do this.  Though man has been on earth for five millions years, it is only fairly recently that this ‘marriage’ is a rule rather than the exception. Obviously man has discovered that this is the best arrangement after a lot of trial and error. It makes no sense to want to go backward from our evolved state. Hence, in my opinion, people should marry and should live together permanently. Therefore, another name of marriage is commitment.

Currency Futures Market

Currency Futures Market

Currency futures contracts are contracts specifying a standard volume of a particular currency to be exchanged on a specific settlement date. They are commonly used by MNCs to hedge their foreign currency positions. In addition, they are traded by speculators who hope to capitalize on their expectations of exchange rate movements. A buyer of a currency futures contract locks in the exchange rate to be paid for a foreign currency at a future point in time. Alternatively, a seller of a currency futures contract locks in the exchange rate at which a foreign currency can be exchanged for the home currency. In the United States, currency futures contracts are purchased to lock in the amount of dollars needed to obtain a specified amount of a particular foreign currency; they are sold lock in the amount of dollars to be received from selling a specified amount of a particular foreign currency.

Credit Risk of Currency Futures Contracts

Each currency futures contract represents an agreement between a client and the exchange clearinghouse, even though the exchange has not taken a position. For example, assume you call a broker to request the purchase of a British pound futures contract with a March settlement date. Meanwhile, another person unrelated to you calls a broker to request the sale of a similar futures contract. Neither party needs to worry about the credit risk of the counterparty. The exchange clearinghouse assures that you will receive whatever is owed to you as a result of your currency future position.

To minimize its risk in such a guarantee, the CME impose margin requirements to cover fluctuations in the value of a contract, meaning that the participants must make a deposit with their respective brokerage firms when they take a position. The initial margin requirement is typically between $1,000 and $2,000 per currency futures contract. However, if the value of the futures contract declines over time, the buyer may be asked to add to the initial margin. Margin requirements are not always required for forward contracts due to the more personal nature of the agreement; the bank knows the firm it is dealing with and may trust is to fulfill its obligation.

Speculation with Currency Futures

Currency futures contracts are sometimes purchased by speculators who are simply attempting to capitalize on their expectation of a currency’s future movement. Currency futures are often sold by speculators who expect that the spot rate of a currency will be less than the rate at which they would be obliged to sell it. Of course, expectations are often incorrect. It is because of different expectations that some speculators decide to purchase futures contracts while other speculators decide to sell the same contracts at a given point in time.

Currency Futures Market Efficiency

If the currency futures market is efficient, the futures price for a currency at any given point in time should reflect all available information. That is, it should represent an unbiased estimate of the respective currency’s spot rate on the settlement date. Thus, the continual use of a particular strategy to take positions in currency futures contracts should not lead to abnormal profits. Some positions will likely result in gains while others will result in losses, but over time, the gains and losses should offset. Research has found that in some years, the futures price has consistently exceeded the corresponding price as of the settlement date, while in other years, the futures price has consistently been below the corresponding price as of the settlement date. This suggests that the currency futures market may be inefficient. However, the patterns are not necessarily observable until after they occur, which means that it may be difficult to consistently generate abnormal profits from speculating in currency futures.

Trading Platforms for Currency Futures

There are electronic trading platforms that facilitate the trading of currency futures. These platforms serve as a broker, as they execute the trades desired. The platform typically sets quotes for currency futures based on an ask price at which one can buy a specified currency for a specified settlement date, and a bid price at which one can sell a specified currency. Users of the platforms incur a free in the form of a difference between the bids and ask prices.