I live here in Birmingham Alabama...home to a company by the name of Healthsouth. Some of you might have herd of it ...any way my cousin's grand father happens to be one of the former CEO's of the company. This mans house has 16+ bed rooms w/ 50'' plasma TV's (I lost count), 3+ kitchens, a 28 seat movie theater, 7+ bathrooms, a pool, a guest house, 12+ acres of land, and to top it off, a 2,000,000 dollar chandelier that just hangs from the celing. This house is so damn big, that the husband and wife have to call eachother on their cell phones, just to communicate from one part of the house to the other, and if you dont feel like walking....take the elevator!. In the garage, you'll find a BMW 7 series, and a Bentley continental gt priced at 250 g's. What am I getting at here? well, in the 2hrs I was there, even though I was with friends, I got soooo lonely, and bored. I felt kinda sorry for the man and his wife, but they chose to build the biggest house in the state for 30 mill....i wonder what they were thinking at the time. If I had that kinda money, I'd rather live much more "simply", and give lots of $$ away. cm69
The whole point of that story is that just because you have $$$, doesn't mean you'll be happy...in fact many people are happier giving their fortune away, like Warren Buffett.
the equation is much more complicated. It isnt just giving it away...it is doing something you believe in which makes life satisfactory for you. hapiness and money are mutually exclusive in many ways. Money merely simplifies the monetary aspect of things. which is important. The warren buffet/gates foundation thing is not just giving it away...it is leaving your mark in a positive way and making the world a better place. George Soros is the same way. the satisfaction of having made enough money to be able to make the world a better place is where the happiness comes in. If money gets between you and your family, or if it makes life more complicated...then you need to sit back and reevaluate.
As far as money and happiness goes, I think the higher you go the more the happiness correlation decreases. Meaning if you go from 50K to 150K a year your happiness level will increase a lot more than going from 30 mill to 40 mill a year.
Because you get to a point where there are no thrills..you can afford just about anything you want, so there are no more goals to set.
I'm a capitalist. But i'll be the first to admit that capitalism has it's down-side just as every other ism does.