Is the U.S too obsessed with money?
 

edit:crap I meant to put this in tilted living, if the mods could move it there or wherever they think it should belong.

I just wanna apologize ahead of time if you don't get what I'm saying, I'm not to good at expressing my thoughts on paper (or in this case on a monitor)

In my every day routine I always get the impression from the people I meet that money is the key to hapiness. You watch the news and they talk about the poor US economy and you get the impression everyone has this shitty life because of it. I come on here and read the politics section and besides terrorism, most of the posts it seems are about the economy. I go to work and all the kids I work with talk about how they wanna make a shitload of cash so they can buy all sorts of crap, and they think that will make them happy.

In high school I had a humanitarians teacher, and a year later a public issues teacher, both of whom asked the class on the first day to write a short paragraph on the purpose we all go to school. In the class probably 70% of the kids thought the purpose was so we could go to college and then get a good job that makes a lot of money. If you asked the whole school I'm sure most of the responses would be the same.

It feels like there is just this line of thinking that the purpose of life is to get a good job to buy a nice house and buy all sorts of crap. I hear people argue against things like universal health, the reasoning often times is it'll raise taxes and those people don't wanna pay for others health care. My question to them is is that 52" screen tv, or swimming pool, or whatever it is you plan on buying with your extra money really more important to you then the well being of another person? I realize in many cases these people don't wanna be taxed because its their rent or car insurance that they need to pay for and not luxury items(which is why you need less taxes on the lower class).

I realize having a good economy is important, and having the things we have is indeed very nice. I just find we are way too obsessed with it all, and Americans everyday find more and more hapiness in consumerism.

Money can't make you happy.

Lack of money can make you miserable.

I agree with most everything in the original post. However, it isn't really fair to ask a person who works hard and pays 50-60% in taxes to just give up some more of their money for the benefit of someone else. There is no question that the good causes of the world overwhelm at least my ability to rectify them with money. At some point (and I think we are well past it), additional taxation becomes an issue of freedom. You also seem to advocate a more progressive tax system. I believe that will hurt the economy from top to bottom.

People like to say that money can't make you happy.

It can, and I have just the proof you need:

Do you like going to work everyday from 9 to 5? I mean, really really like it?

If you had the option of having enough money to where you never had to do this, would you?

If you had enough money to never have to worry about bills, to have a decent house (doesn't have to be a million dollar home, just an avg family house), to know that you'll never have to be concerned about your financial status, would you like that? Wasting 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year (minus holidays) of your life is quite a bit. Wouldn't you like to have it back and reclaim what's yours?

I love my job. However, if I suddenly got my hands on $10 million, I'd quit in a heartbeat. I'd buy a nice $300k home, pay it off, and just enjoy the rest of my life.

Money can't buy you other happiness related things, like a woman who loves you, or health, but it most certainly relieves a lot of stress that's on pretty much everyone else's shoulders.

I like my job. whether I do it from home or at the office is irrelevant. Were I to win the lottery, I would quit my job but only because I'd start my new one. Owner/Driver of my very own Nextel Cup racing team.

I agree with #2, but I think money can make you happy in the short term. People adapt to a standard of living, and changes can be either pleasant or not, but once someone is used to living a certain way, it's not so important how high that standard of living is.

As for the post, I think you could make a strong argument that we might be better off spending some of our national income building a better society through education and other such things, rather than on greater levels of consumption.

Well said.


Mr Mephisto

I couldn't agree more....but I still want money :)

I have a bit of a different opinion here...

I believe that money is pretty much everything. I don't mean to sound materialistic or anything as shallow as that, but basically - at least here in America - Money buys freedom. Lack of money limits so many people as to what they can do, where they can go, and what they can have. I also will have to disagree with the sentiment that money can't buy happiness. Obviously, you can't purchase a feeling, however - if you don't have to stress about money/ have the freedom to do pretty much whatever you want (within reason) it will be a heck of a lot easier to be happy that to have to struggle to put food on the table.

Just my $.02 (harhar)...

Here's a quote from the Boiler Room -
"People who say money doesn't buy happiness - don't fucking have any."

the key to having a happy life is enjoying what you have, not whining about what you don't have. And the best things in life can't be bought.

Yes. The U.S. is too obsessed with money.

Money can't buy pure liquid happiness, but it can buy sources of happiness. And beyond the normal products, it can provide security, determine the environment you live in and the people you live around, and generally reduce your fears.

But yes, the U.S. on the whole, is too obsessed with money, especially if you think about what people are willing to do to make money beyond what is necessary to amply provide for the things I mentioned above.

Well, we're certainly too obsessed with possessions. Which means we think we _really need_ a lot more money than we really do need.

The bumpersticker "He Who Dies with the Most Toys, Wins," kinda says it all. I do know people who act like that, and their life is all about appearances: what you drive, what you wear, how big a house you have, and so on. When you get locked into that mindset, you close your mind to the very possibility of recognizing or considering a great many deeper issues about yourself or about the world in general.

I think Ben Affleck said it best in Boiler Room:

"Money can't buy you happiness" is cliche.

It's not true.

You know it, I know it. The end.

I don't recall exactly where I heard it first, but I've heard someone say that "Americans live to work, while Europeans work to live." IME, this is true. Somehow the American Dream went from enjoying life into making a crap load of money. Yes, the money can help you to enjoy life, but if you're too miserable to appreciate what you've got, what's the point? Why kill yourself working just so you can have the most toys? Personally

I'd rather work enough to do what I enjoy (and have enough time to properly enjoy those things), but if that means I need to save some by getting used cars and books etc., then that's A-OK with me. There seems to be a lot of people that just see the money at the end of the tunnel.

I don't think that the original post really said anything about the "money can't buy happiness" thing. If I understand his point well, he was stating that Americans base more of their self-worth on buying things than they do on being who they are.

The consumer culture of this country is nothing short of incredible. We are actually told that we are not good Americans if we are not listening to advertising and buying up all of the crap that is being offered. I have had people argue with me that we need more consumer spending because it is better for the economy than consumer savings.

If money can't buy you happiness, you aren't buying the right things. :lol:

I think we save too little in the US and the savings rate should be a little higher. On the whole, however, I agree that spending is better than saving for the economy.

Oh, and lower taxes. I think the government derives too much of its self-worth from spending my money. I think it should just slow down, smell some roses, and stop spending so much.

I'm not trying to say wanting to make money is unhealth or anything. But I think we take it too far, to the point where Americans basically live life to make money and buy things thinking that what will make them happy is the stuff they buy. I live in a rural but pretty heavily populated town. People are never really outside interacting with each other doing things, they are all inside watching tv and playing games. Thats a general statement, however its not all that far from the truth.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say, maybe I mean that I think money has become more important then life.

If money can't buy happiness...I guess I'll have to rent it :-(

Well written, good point, I agree.
But referring to what Ustwo said: Well written, good point, I agree.

The top five pleasures in my life:

1. Wife.
2. Baby.
3. Rest of the family (mom, siblings)
4. My REAL friends (friends help you move....REAL friends help you move bodies...and a real friend isn't someone you use once and throw away...a real friend is someone you use over and over again. :thumbsup: )
5. Pets (all rescued cats)

These things are not for sale. And I can't think of a single asset (hell, even ALL of my assets) that I'd be unwilling to sell to protect or keep one of the top four. If I had everything I could ever dream of having possession-wise, but was without one of the top four to get it, I'd be miserable.

Money can't buy you happiness, but it sure as hell can provide some of the basic necessities that all people require in order to be truly happy.


Let's face it, we all need money in order to acquire the following:

Food

Clothing

Shelter -- (i.e. decent house or apartment with running water, electricity, heating for winter)

Higher education -- seriously, it's damn near impossible to get a free ride to college
unless you're an exceptional athlete or a super-genius

Money buys freedom, not happiness, i don't care what ben affleck said in boiler room. Affleck has plenty of money, but i can't imagine that he's too happy about the current state of his career or his highly publicized relationship failures. In america, money is opportunity. Happiness is appreciating what you have, you don't need money to do that, in fact, i would imagine that it would be more difficult for someone born into wealth to appreciate what they have, since they've never not had it.

if anyone was confused by my first post on the thread... :lol: means it was a joke. :D

I like the bemper sticker that I saw a year or so ago.

"Need Less"

I have been working on this myself.

I'd attribute it more to rampant consumerism and materialism. It runs through us, money is an expedient through which material wealth can be had, hence the drive to obtain money, to satiate the desire for stuff.

For me it has nothing to do with greed, it's all about not seeing it as right to impose my will on someone else in such a manner.

You couldn't be more wrong.

Ask a rich man who's child is dying of cancer how happy he is.

The US does seem to be more preoccupied with wealth than others. I remember listening to a conversation between my father (a corporate lawyer) and one of his work colleagues while they were basically categorising a person's worth as a result of his salary (and this from someone who once told me he didn't care what I did in life as long as I was happy).

By their reckoning, you are nothing until you're earning $100,000 a year, and that people who earned less than that were lazy and unambitious. When I pointed out that there are plenty of worthwhile professions that pay far less than that (and that, of course, the average annual income in the US is far, far less than $100,000), they responded that anyone who enters into these professions in the first place has no ambition either.

I was shocked to say the least.

Or a rich man whose children hate him and are only hanging around to get their claws on his money, or a rich woman who longs to be young and attractive again or....

No, it cannot buy happiness.

You people use bad examples. Cancer? Okay then... haha. No one said it can buy you health, or people who aren't greedy. Those are problems everyone deals with, rich or not.

How about: hey, I never have to stress out about wasting my life working 40 hour weeks to pay my bills. Yay! That's proof of happiness right there.

Anything else is extra.

So yes, it can buy happiness. I'm not "wrong", it's an opinion. If I was rich, I'd be happier because the only worries I have in life now are working and paying bills.. and I don't even have problems with those. If I had cancer, I'd worry either way. At least I know if I was rich, I could go on a massive spending spree before I died.

No, we used very good examples.

And Ustwo already addressed your example by saying that lack of money could cause unhappiness.

It is entirely possible to have your "bills paid" and still not be happy.

Cancer is not a good example...

In any case, I never said complete happiness, but it will buy a LOT of it.

...and you're a liar if you claim you wouldn't be happy if you just suddenly acquired a few million.

Whatever.

Good luck on trying to buy happiness.

Cliche cliche.

There was a study (linked on Fark a couple of months ago). Money does buy happiness.

Essentially it comes down to money helping eliminate some common areas of stress. Stompy is right - it can buy happiness, but it cannot buy all happiness.

The basic problem is that both of you are equating the lack of stress over money issues with happiness and the same stress with unhappiness.

The Buddha, who was the heir to great wealth, threw it all away in his search for nirvana. Jesus died penniless on the cross. Mother Theresa, Ghandi, the Dahli Lama, all poor...and happy.

There are also many examples of men and women with great wealth who are/were decidedly unhappy, including Howard Hughes and William Randolph Hurst.

So clearly, happiness is not directly connected to wealth.

When we examine those who have wealth and ARE happy, the relationship becomes clear.

Those who maintain perspective and who use their money in ways that benefit people are those that are happy.

Bill Gates donates billions of dollars to charity, does not live in the biggest house off of Lake Washington, and who has said that his children will have to work for their living is apparently happy.

This is of course why the saying "money can't buy you happiness" is often misconstrued, because to some it seems that these wealthy people MUST be happy and it MUST come from their money.

Likewise why some do not understand the corallary, that the love of money is the root of all evil, thinking that it is money itself that is evil, because people commit great evils while pursuing money.

In short, money is a tool, being external to ourselves.

Happiness, which is a state of being, must come from within.

At best, money can influence the environment in which we pursue happiness (i.e. provide an environment without the stress of "how will I feed my children" and "how will I afford shelter for my family?")

Yes.

And note that no one has stated that money is happiness. Simply that money can buy happiness. As you have just stated.

Please, if you want to believe that, you may.

But I just posted at length that money CANNOT BUY HAPPINESS.