Why are people obsessed with money?

Because we need it to pay our mortgages, dental care and sexy shoe bills. The alternative doesn't bear thinking.

People,in general,are obsessed with the "Now". They are willing to do whatever it takes to "have it all now",even if it means spending time away from family to get it all " now"! What I have realized is that the greatest ivestment I can ever make to my "portfolio" is the time I spend with my husband and daughter. There is no amount of money or possession that surpasses that. I think people would ne better off,as well as our nation, if we invested in building strong families instead of fatter wallets.....strive to spend time instead of money.... Just my opinion.

I think I would like an example of obsessed. If you mean, big oil companies posting record profits while the consumer suffers, then I see your point. If you mean the average family with both spouses working their fingers to the bone to provide a better life for each other and their children, then I don't. As fkt said, we have bills to pay.

There are some political factions in this country that try to promote the "money is evil" thing, which I find ridiculous. The constant claiming of "the rich, the rich" drives me nuts. Instead of trying to lift others up, they try to push the wealthy down.

I suppose that wealth is how we measure success in America, for good or bad. But being obsessed with money, if money=success, is not a bad thing so long as it doesn't rule your actions, ethics, and morals.

We all seem to have this undying need to consume and consume and consume. Therefore to be able to buy the things we want, we have to have money.

I think the better question is why do people have the undying need to consume.

(and that question has now been asked)

because without It...no one can survive in the world..get money

yes we are because we cant resist the fact that while we live our lives someone has it better, better car, bigger house, better job, etc, so they push the rest of us to pursue the same, unless u r part of the mediocre side of the world, is not a bad thing, just keep your morals and your values and things will go fine, if u work hard enough and have enough luck, ur kids will have the best education and u'll retire the way we always dream of....

How about this question?? Where does our money come from???
Do some research and youll find that the Federal Reserve is a PRIVATE ORGANIZATION with appointed officials, not elected officials. Basically, when Congress wants money, they go to the FED and ask them to PRINT money BACKED by NOTHING!! We dont use the gold standard so they print paper money. Sounds good except that we pay interest on this paper. That is what majority of our INCOME TAX goes to. It is a SCAM. Also think about this. If you have $100 Million in circulation, and the next year you print another $100 million, you do not get this money, other people do. The value of your dollar goes down. This system is bound to crash eventually. Items dont cost more now then they did 20 years ago b/c they cost more to produce, it is b/c the value of your dollar went down.
RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT!! He is a Congressman from Texas that talks about all of this. Check him out on youtube

Because most people work for their money, rather than putting their money to work for them. And money is a very, very tough boss to work for. Always demanding more from you.

Too many folks take the marketers' messages to heart - you have to buy "this" to be happy in life or to make your life easier or to make yourself more worthy in the eyes of others.

Rich is a state of mind; wealth is how much money you have.

I believe it was Charles Barkley who said his mother told him, "If you have a problem and it can be solved with money, it's not a problem, it's a situation."

But to answer your question, we are told more money will solve all problems. Total bunk.

chris6137 said: "Where does our money come from???"
I don't know, but here is another question:

"Why can't we make our own money?!"
or "Why do we need money? Why isn't everything free?"

And with everything, I mean everything. If at least 1 in each family had a job to make, produce and design everything, we didn't need any money at all!

Actually, I always asked myself this question, and now I can ask it :-)

It makes the world go round - apprently. Personally I prefer Sunday monrnings in bed.

klass... I agree some type of barter system would bd nice. Everyone should look at their "job" as their contribution to society

Yes, like we contribute to Fluther giving these answers...

I don’t know if a barter system would solve the problem. Some goods are inherently more valuable than others. For instance, let’s say one family has a doctor, and the other produces decorative beads. Would you trade a heart operation for a handful of beads?

That is why society invented ‘tokens’ (money) to represent the value of a good or service – as a means to facilitate a barter system. I guess the problem is that people begin to see these tokens as an end in itself, and attribute value to accumulating and then spending as many tokens as they can.

Why does this happen? Maybe it’s conditioning. You work 40 hours a week in exchange for a reward, so you get positive feelings from earning and then using that reward to purchase things you need and want, which again is a positive reinforcement. This creates a cycle where the accumulation of money itself becomes attributed as the cause of positive feelings.

@1wealth: the links seems to dead – its giving me a 404 error page

Because:

1) We live in a closed system (the Earth, you know, being spheroid).

2) Some of us are better at exploiting the system—or “creating wealth”, if you want to be all “cup half full” about it—than others.

3) Those who are better at exploitation—ahem—wealth creation…don’t really feel the need to share. Think you’re immune? Well, are you planning your honeymoon in Zimbabwe?

4) Those who have tried sharing (i.e., communitarians, communists, cultists) end up engendering extreme power polarization (i.e., oligarchy, despotism) even more efficiently and obviously than the “democratic” republic.

5) Because the exploiters/creator$ haven’t figured out how to make money from housing the homeless, making prison populations useful or how to get to orbit cheaply enough to begin commercial exploitation/creation$ in space. Blue Ocean thinking takes imagination, a commodity that is discouraged and rare thanks to our 18th century system and habit of buying up/subsequently sitting on patents.

Because unfortunately, money is freedom in this world.

Money is not freedom. If anything, our monetary policy and economics policy, is eroding, EROOOOOODING our freedoms.

There’s an interesting book called: Busting Loose from the Money Game. If you like alternative thinking, this book provides it.

It’s about recognition and self validation. For example ever look at someone’s points on fluther and say wow how do I get that many points. Then the obsession begins.

Its simple in todays society money is power. The more money you have the more people either respect you or want to kill you. Money means you can have everything physical, but it does not grant you happiness. As the old saying goes.

We like money because we can buy iPhones with it! :-)

I don’t know? Why are you? You asked the question?

Power and/or security. You can a find both without money, but it is a lot harder.

Uh, duh, our society REVOLVES around money. You have a lot of money (and know how to manage it) and you do well. You don’t have a lot of money (or don’t know how to manage it) and you are basically a bum.

Because money is a necessity.
without, we as people would be nothing. it determines who we know, how we live, what we see, how we think, and how we act and react. it binds and ties us to obligation, stature, privilege, and blindness.
People are obsessed with money, because people are obsessed with bigger, better, more.
A smile, a walk, a conversation, a moment. Money can’t buy a sincere one of these. Really.

Money is not a necessity. Money isn’t even real. It is simply a representation of an agreement between two or more people.

money is paper with a name. something used to control people. money may not be a necessity to you or to i but to some, it rules their lives.

As i read all of these answers to this diffacult question i notice a pattern.Greed, power, wealth, gold.Im not yet twenty six but i enjoy observing people and society as a whole, and wondering what makes people tick.I think people are missing the missing the bigger picture.The sad truth is that humans are too smart for thier own good.We constantly feel the need to learn about our surroundings and to keep going further and exploring new places.Wich on the surface sounds like a good and right thing to do.But that is our downfall.W really are a virus sucking the life out of earth.We americans are the worst.Im not even gonna touch germans.Americans are so self absorbed and greedy that the majority of us only thinking about how we can further ourselves.I cant help but notice it over and over again, so until that asroid hits and repairs the earth temporarily until we return, people will always be obsessed with money. “IGNORANCE IS BLISS”

Because they are sinners and are deluded by the father of lies Satan!

So how long did you stay in the big house, Vicseay?

@Adam26: Apparently long enough to find God.

No they are not obsessed with money.
It is sex they are obsessed with, however you are not looked kindly upon if you admit to it.

“Money might not buy happiness, but it can rent it for a long time”

Sorry, but money does make happy. MONEY PAYS FOR CHANEL. CHANEL MAKES ME HAPPY =)
Its just a nice thing to have, just not an easy thing to earn.

Money is the purest, most portable and fluid form of social energy. Any energy can make you happy or crazy. It is up to you.

The world revolves around money; Our lives revolve around money. We go to work for money and with this money we can buy material goods. It makes our lives fuller.

money bought my iPhone so it has provided all the happiness i need.

ok ok im not that nerdy but i do think money buys happiness because it provides all the things i enjoy doing. a boat for waterskiing. snowboards. sports stuff. and my computer

money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round…

And it makes me happy.

Ego is the answer to it all

@dolly—Well, if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.

well after I won the lottery…...........

we need money to take care of ourselves buy what we want n pay our bills n money it is what we need to suriave

Because money is the great “curtain of deception” – we think we are getting “more” when we have more money, but what is “more”? Security? Love? Food? Comfort? I’ve known a lot of rich people who just can’t get comfortable no matter where they live/stay. It’s a smoke-screen people! But it surely has my attention.

It’s free to get sick, but you need to pay to get cured…

>:-(

Money is not the problem. Its how it reflects our worth. eg. do you think a football or rock or film star deserve to earn a weekly salary which is greater than say a doctors annual salary? Do you think a doctor deserves to earn 4 times that of a nurse? The problem you see is that we do not value people as equals. We judge them by their relative health,skills and abilities. This takes no account of individual opportunities and knock in life, so therefore does not reward us or value us in the same way. We have a primative “survival of the fittest” culture in which if you dont achieve a level of wealth, you are a worthless lazy bum. I mean they talk about capitalism providing freedom of opportunity but the reality is that its impossible for us all 2 have the same wealth as Bill Gates.I believe that the answer could be in capping wages. This way people will enter careers for the right reasons. I also believe that every job should have a social/environmental responsibility and value to society and this should be reflected in the redistribution of wealth to good causes by all companies.

moneys cool if you just want to tick over and live. But some people just have a hunger for others to be envious of them so the ones who are obsessed are also obsessed with status and money. They would probably be the kind to stab someone else in the back(fig. of speech)for their own gain.
Think about what the world would be like if we all had jobs but everyone got paid an equal share no matter what the job.
I think ill post such a question and see what peops say..

ipsskunk “what the world would be like if we all had jobs but everyone got paid an equal share”

I think that is called socialism????

Most people seem to be obsessed with money because in the USA you are hard wired that way from birth. It’s tough to wean yourself, and I’m not sure that you can ever be completely weaned. To life a comfortable life, all that’s really needed is a warm dry house, ordinary food, a loving companion, and a modest income to pay for necessities. Way below what most consider a comfortable life. We are jaded, the grass is always greener, never satisfied, never happy, which if pointed in the proper direction would be a plus, but…. aimed at creature comforts and keep up with the Jones, is an unhealthy obsession.

One of the good things to come out of this pickle we are now in, will be the realization of a lot of people that what is truly meaningful in life, is not the dollars we gather, but the friends.

GA pekenoe.

Welcome to fluther. I like your ourlook on life.

chris6137: Thank you, I do like this forum and the members are courteous and knowledgeable. I will do my best to be a valuable member.

I think because they are greedy

Money does not equate happiness or freedom. In fact, it is the belief that money provides “freedom” that actually enslaves you and puts you in your own little prison.

Someone else once said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “The pursuit of money and the belief that we need it to be happy, is the source of most of the world’s problems today”

“Only when he has ceased to need things can a man be his own master and so truly exist.”—Anwar Sadat

Because we are slaves to it :)

What good does us freedom if we fail to be free…....

it’s a resource, therefore its wanted by many

Because Money is Power.

I like money, I keep some in a coffee can , I would like to have some more. Got some?

People aren’t obsessed with the mere tool used for trade, known as money. Rather they are obsessed with the wonderful goods and services they can obtain with money. There is so much to buy, and our wants are infinite.

It’s the best way to buy cheezburgrz.

Money is the root of all evil. I, as it happens, am already evil. As a public service, I will gladly take on all your evil… Just send me all your money, and go enjoying your evil free lives. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine . Bwa ha ha hah ha

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound
A buck or a pound
A buck or a pound
Is all that makes the world go around,
That clinking clanking sound
Can make the world go ‘round.

Money is power, and power can be used to modify one’s environment to better suit him.

And for the record, it’s the love of money – that is, greed and its relatives – that is the root of all evil, people. Not money itself.

Man. You guys are a bunch of fools! Esp you Mr. “b/c nobody can survive in the world” Jackass! Maybe you ought to crack open a good history book or a science book and see that that’s not true.

My theory is b/c people are barely smart enough to do just that—make a ton of money and pay the bills which is what they’ve been taught all their lives from the cradle to the grave. Otherwise, they’re on crack or something if they honestly think that they’ll starve to death or can’t support themselves somehow without it.

Strange thing: I was listenin’ to a newstation the other day and it seemed like every other word to come out of their mouth was “money and bills”. That’s how I come to find this thread.

And btw, money has no brain, no soul, not even a heart or a lifespan unlike human beings. It’s just green paper. Therefore, money is not the root of anything. People are really the root of all evil.

I think people are greedy for a number of reasons. The way the world operate revolves around money therefore a person status and what they have is seen by how much money they have. However this doesnt mean that they are superior to others in terms of value its just that money controls their ways. Ask rich people if they would want to be an equal and they would probably say no because they want to be richer are vainer, have egos and pride gets in the way. We should all be working for free and being paid equal in terms of wealth as all humans are the same flesh and blood . However i dont think this will ever happen on earth as alot of people wouldnt be willing to change their greedy corrupt paper worth ways. It would take a divine intervention by God or something.

It’s so simple: people are obsessed with money because it can buy things. Things can make life easier and more enjoyable.
But for some reason, it doesn’t make you happier. At least not for very long.
A family won the lottery on tv. She had been living in a mobile home, driving an old car. She was smiling and glowing, “money does make you happier!” But as the years go by, I doubt she’ll be happier. By then, she’ll be accustomed to her big new home and fancy car and probably desire more. Desire creates unhappiness.