Brain Meets Money
Brain Meets Money
Richard Quinn
HOW OFTEN DO you think about money? Hey, you just did. Seriously, we think about money every day and sometimes every hour. Some studies say we ponder financial matters even more often than the old standby: sex. We’ve been thinking about the stuff for a long time. Money goes back about 3,000 years. Paper currency can be traced to China in 700 BC. They didn’t fool around: Their currency stated that all counterfeiters would be decapitated. I’m guessing counterfeiting was rare.
Today, it costs two cents to manufacture a penny and almost eight cents to make a nickel. Result? Each year, we taxpayers lose about $85.4 million on the production of pennies and $33.5 million on nickels.
Gee, at that rate, those of us on Social Security could receive a $2-a-year raise if they made cheaper money. Who needs pennies anyway? Money is no more than a piece of metal or paper—basically worthless, except you can get stuff for it because the people who sell you stuff can get other stuff with the money you give them.
Does money make us happy? Benjamin Franklin didn’t think so. “Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.”
The evidence suggests Ben was right, but try telling that to addicted lottery players. I recall a TV show depicting the impact of winning the lottery on people. Instead of making the winners happy, it often messes up their lives, mostly because they’re ill-prepared to handle the money and because they thought spending would make them happy.
One winner stands out in my memory. He bought several pieces of used heavy construction equipment just to have. He didn’t know the tax withholding on his winnings wouldn’t cover all of the tax he owed. He eventually lost all of his prize possessions and a great deal more to the IRS.
Another family lived in a trailer and, instead of moving, expanded it, bought each child their own ATV and gave each an allowance of $1,000 a month. The kids were ostracized at school and had to leave.
“The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are,” offered Mark Twain. Indeed, if you Google the subject of happiness and money, you will find assessments from every point of view. But none concludes that money buys permanent happiness, only fleeting pleasure perhaps
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