It is not about trading happiness for money. It is about trading a small amount of happiness NOW for a large amount of happiness later or a large amount of ability to achieve your goals.
If you are a teacher/Journalist/artist who wants the world to be more educated, more informed, or more artistically enriched, you are universally better able to achieve those goals with 100 million dollars in the bank.
So yes. Everyone SHOULD have a price. Maybe that price is 100 million dollars. Maybe it is 10 thousand. But a price is a price.
But back to the actual question at hand. Yes, i do believe that tripling your salary could lead to you retiring 20 years earlier.
It is simple math, really. Even with the increase in taxes, you will have about double at least the total amount of take home pay. And if you have a ~40 year work life, but take home twice as much money after taxes, that means you only have to work ~20 years to make the same amount of after taxes income.
Call it 15 years to be more conservative. But the numbers are close.
Are you just trolling then?
The "what if someone offered you 100 million dollars?" game is a game that children play. Your insistence on repeatedly interjecting this bit of childishness is just bizarre. The context of the discussion and the OPs comment is working as a salaried employee.
There was was never any question of a job "liked moderately less." The OP said quite unequivocally that they "hate" living where they live. Hate is a pretty strong emotion, it does not describe a state of being moderately less happy.
No, not everyone has a price for which they are willing to exchange their happiness for.
I also completely disagree that everyone "should" have a price they are willing to exchange their happiness for. It's strikes me as quite odd that you choose to pronounce these things(your opinions) as universal and absolute truths.
There are many people who work jobs that offer them happiness at the expense of lower pay. Artists, teachers, journalists, social service workers are all examples of this. I recently met some Americans and Britons who were working in tech in Berlin. Even though they could make a better salary back home they chose Berlin because the quality of life there makes them happier. So no, not "everybody" has a price.
>"Here is an example. Would you accept 100 million dollars to work in Saudia Arabia for a year?"
This is a total straw man. The OP actually stated that they were able to triple their salary by working in SV/SF. How is that at all comparable with being able to retire as one of the most wealthy people on the planet after 1 year? You are comparing a possible practical reality with a fantasy.
Also along with tripling one's salary by working in SV/SF comes a higher tax bracket and probably triple what you would pay in rent in the most expensive Canadian tech hub. It's not very realistic to think that you are going to retire 20 years earlier on just a SF/SV salary, not even close.