I am a man of modest means. I own a house, but it's not worth a lot. I have a retirement income which is not large, but is enough to live on. I have an old truck and an old car. And yet, if I measure what I have against the rest of the world I am quite wealthy. In this country with the system we have we strive to attain as much wealth as we can. Are we the problem?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Yes....there is still a strong sense of "he who dies with the most toys - wins!" It doesn't matter how much money you make - it's how much (and how) you spend it. Maybe it should not come as a surprise that a country as wealthy as ours has a huge segment of the population that still live paycheck to paycheck.... 
Lavergne
Level 8
Apr 7, 2020
0
I too believe in "enough", which means low levels of worry & not running up big bills for "fun". I have been VERY poor in the past, I deeply appreciate being not-poor. I believe if I won a big lottery (don't even play) I would help a few friends & my family but give the rest to Heifer International and Smile Train.
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Apr 4, 2020
1
Excellent choice. I have donated to Smile Train.
There is an optimal level of material well-being. Too much stuff and you might get distracted from the immediate miracle of each passing moment. That optimum level is probably different for different people however.
It sounds like.you and I are at our optimal levels of wealth.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Apr 4, 2020
2
My feelings are that once you start accumulating the best, the newest, the fanciest, it's never enough, because there will always be others with better, newer, fancier things.
Once you choose to be happy with what you have, and let others have the excess, you find that just enough is really all you need, and rather than spending time searching for better, you can just relax and enjoy your life!
I find the happiest people often are those who have the least. It seems to me that Americans spend a lot of time and energy comparing ourselves to others, when our own happiness should be the measuring stick.
Julie808
Level 8
Apr 4, 2020
3
"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."
~Albert Einstein
Ann-1980
Level 5
Apr 4, 2020
4
I am sure he would be horrified that it sold for about $1M!
Except for the immense wealth OF this country, would you have what you have? Isn't the extent of your 'wealth' derived from this overall wealth?
In other words, if this was a poorer country, wouldn't YOU be poorer as well?
I think most people on this planet should be richer. It's only because some people hoard their wealth most people have so little. If we had a more socialistic system that wouldn't be the case.
But to say wealth itself is the problem, I think, misses the mark.
Storm1752
Level 8
Apr 4, 2020
2
That is very true. But there is also the point that accumilating weath beyond what we need is the main cause of damage to the environment. Someone once said that most of our problems could be solved, if people were happy to eat three bowls of gruel per day and spent their spare time lying in an insulated box. On the other hand it is only countries with a certain level of wealth, who can afford the spare resources to worry about the environment. Its complex.
@Fernapple You're right from one perspective. ANOTHER perspective has it there are too many people, period. Degradation of the environment AT SOME POINT is inevitable, regardless of individual consumption.
Sure, we could all be recycling vegans living in self-sustaining geodesic domes and theoretically there could be 20 billion or even 40 billion people on this planet, but at some point the Earth itself would collapse under the weight and swallow us all up!
A better number would be about 4 billion.
And get rid of all the cows!
@Allamanda That is pure corporate greed, which is enshrined in the very nature of corporations, which MUST export from their balance sheets 'externalities' like pollution and human destitution, in the interest of ever higher profits for shareholders. Corporations are TRULY man-made viruses.
Although I'm in favor of higher degree of re-distribution of wealth . . .
S/He who dies with the most toys wins 
Good luck changing that . . .
FearlessFly
Level 9
Apr 4, 2020
1
Those who die with the most toys, have wasted their lives collecting toys.
That is a moronic saying which people insist on repeating because it sounds so cute and Murphy's Lawish.
Stop it.
We get the irony, okay? The POINT of the irony, which seems to get lost in the knowing smirks, is the accumulation of wealth for it's own sake or for some kind of fleeting status, is childish, shallow, and even harmful and WRONG.
Good luck ending empty, pointless materialism? Like anything else worth doing, it's an agonizingly slow process, but it IS happening.
At least I happen to think so
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