I think, instead, that we should say "purchasing power" is overrated. Things are overrated.
But money, money is different. If you have one million dollars in even a 3 or 4 percent return investment (or, long ago, a bank with a non-zero interest rate), that gives you $30k +, or the equivalent of a single blue-collar/ min. wage worker.
If you get a bit better, let's say 6%, you never have to work. $60,000 a year, for simply letting others use your money? That's like having two personal workers produce for you, without needing any sustenance, only direction.
All of this can quickly go to hell. Fast. But we should not underestimate what money can do. If anything, money is underrated.
Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteI am completely convinced on how with money, one never has to work to get by. However, couldn't that be a little overrated too? I feel that if one spends their life living off returns, and not creating anything, it would be a boring life without purpose. I know several families where the parents retired in their early 30's from inheritances. While they were happy to begin with in a shallow way, they lacked a deep sense of fulfillment. Now in their late 40's, many of them are trying to re-enter the workplace, perhaps not even for monetary reasons. Also, just about all of these parents are now divorced. (Possible causation?)
I agree that money is power, but not that it is happiness or fulfillment.
See the first sentence. Purchasing power is over rated. There is only so much that you can buy, and you cannot, as you said, buy happiness or fulfillment. But money is not what you buy. It is the liquid potential of what you can buy.
ReplyDeleteNow I don't want to get into a debate of the nature of value - value is entirely subjective. But for all means of practicality, the nature of a highly marketable item - such as money, gold, etc., make it more desirable than something bought.
Unless the Bernanke prints a few trillion dollars and makes your highly marketable money worthless. But that's a different story.
Have you guys figured out what your number is yet?
ReplyDeleteLet us be clear on one thing, I never said money isn't important, because it is. Money buys you choices. Once you are where you want to be, however, more money should no longer matter. The challenge is know where you want to be. If you don't know, money will buy you the time to try different things and the ability to recover from failure. As Brooks in Syracuse has demonstrated, after $70 K/yr, you can't demonstrate that more money results in more happiness. The greatest danger in money is that humans assign each other worth based on their wealth. It is very difficult to define yourself by your own standards and ignore all those signals being sent to you by others. Ego is a very dangerous problem.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with earning money is that it requires time, the only truly limited resource in life. In your early years, it is worth your while to trade time for money as you have abundant time, but little money. Somewhere in your fifties, that trade-off flips.
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ReplyDelete