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From
the Introduction:
When I first got the
idea to write a book about money, America was in the midst of
the greatest economic boom in recent history. At the time, we
had experienced a decade of continuous growth, fueled in part
by a soaring stock market. According to New York University economics
professor Edward N. Wolff, the number of American households worth
ten million dollars or more had quadrupled during this period.
All this produced unimagined
wealth for many people, including those who were barely old enough
to toast their newfound fortune. It got me thinking: what are
the attendant spiritual problems that come with having “more
money than God”—that is to say, more money than any
person ever could need? And what about those who feel they are
smart enough and work hard enough to be rich, but somehow have
missed the party? How much is too much? How much is enough?
Even though America’s
fortunes are not what they used to be, the economy is sure to
crest and dip like the waves of the ocean. Whatever our economic
status may be at the moment, money issues always will permeate
our lives, and souls, if we let them. Ironically, the problem,
as the
philosopher Jacob Needleman recognized, is not that we take money
too seriously, but that we do not take it seriously enough. Economist
John Maynard Keynes observed, “To me it seems clearer every
day that the moral problem of our age is...
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Who
wants to be a millionaire?
A silly question,
perhaps. As money wizard Andrew Tobias said, that’s like
asking who wants to be goodlooking. Still, if a genie gave you
the choice between riches or beauty, which would you choose? Most
people would probably pick wealth. As we all know, beauty fades,
but money earns interest with time.
Many of us
of us who don’t have a lot of money want to get rich, preferably
while we’re still young and, even better, overnight. Despite
the fact that the dot-com money has burned up, a lot of people
still think they can strike it rich if only they pick the right
stock, the right number, or, last and least preferable, work hard
enough.
The idea that
anyone can be rich as long as he or she works hard is an old American
dream. For many, this has been replaced with the new American
dream—to get rich quickly with the least amount of effort.
Money no longer represents a job well done. It no longer represents
effort or
commitment. The possibility of making money—gobs of it—without
actually having to work for it is why we have casinos, sweepstakes,
and TV shows like Survivor. They feed into this frenzied notion
that a million dollars is...
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