What makes you happy? What is your American Dream?
pw0ncakes: I'll follow up with you on this by email, probably tomorrow night when I have time, but I think the quest for money is based on 5 stages:1. Basic needs: food, housing, essential security, and the ability to procreate (which means the ability to afford housing in which it's possible to raise children, and to pay for their education).2. Leisure: books, music, sports, travel, sexuality, the freedom to choose more interesting work.3. Comfort and time: maids, doormen, business-class air travel, professional autonomy, and other provisions to make life a lot less annoying.4. Social status: expensive art, trophy real estate, invitations to (and the ability to throw) ridiculous parties, five-star hotels, private jets, AmEx black cards.5. Power: this is the level of the rich people who have no strong political drive but run for political office (Forbes, and to a lesser extent Romney) or otherwise strive for influence.I differentiate the last two levels because the 5th is usually observed in billionaires who don't have to answer to anyone, nor to prove themselves, so they tend not to care about social status per se (it comes to them) but still strive for high levels of power and influence.Achieving #1 is so difficult in our society (due to the outrageous prices of housing anywhere worth living, plus healthcare and education) that a lot of people bypass it and shoot for #2; this is the "hipster" movement-- young people who are rich at level 2 but poor at level 1 (because it's impossible for them to achieve security). It's relatively easy to be happy on a low income if you don't plan on having kids and actually can, unlike most people who are just aping a cliche, "live in the moment" instead of worrying about healthcare, family (in the future) and retirement. Whether this is reckless or enlightened is a matter of opinion.Money is happiness-producing at levels 1, 2, and most of 3. Where people get tied up and end up miserable, despite ridiculous levels of wealth and income, is when they end up chasing #4-5. These concerns can easily lead to overspending, "golden handcuffs", professional unhappiness, and general malaise, because it's not straightforward to "buy" social status, as nouveaux tend to find out the hard way. When people have their basic needs taken care of and choose to focus on social status in a major way, they become childlike.However, what we take for granted, as elite technologists, is the possibility of filling out levels 1-3 (basics, leisure, comfort) without having to muck around in the bottomless need pit of #4 (social status). Except for very smart technologists and entrepreneurs, it's literally impossible to reach an income sufficient for level 3 (~100-400k, depending on geography and family size) without getting involved in the social status lemon party. We're lucky in that we don't have to.