Is Money Your God ? The Pleasure of Pure Profit

[Cyberman]

I don't give a toss about money as long as I can live comfortably. There are so many more important things to me rather than sweating away in some smelly office.

[ThomasSoerensen]

After realizing there is no higher purpose or meaning to life and there really is no need to have children to preserve the race I found some consolation in thinking of life as a game and money as points. Objective of the game is to get points and not lose them as 0 point equals game over.

So in a way Money is my God.

[AlfredJPruffock]

I know a guy who is worth tens of millions, you wouldn't know it, his clothes are cheap and old, his flat is nothing special. His only concession to wealth is a 10 yr old Porsche. He has no kids. Yet he is obsessed with making ever more money that he won't spend. Most of his wealth was passed on, so perhaps that is the reason.

If you look at most well known super rich businessmen, they don't work like this. money is a tool to get them what they want. It flows out as much as in. Fortunes are won and lost. But the overriding similarity is the money always flows back.

Aye BagPuss

Interesting. For a mo I recalled a bizzare incident many moons ago - a certain well heeled businessman from Hamilton Scotland had decided to dabble with LSD - he took it whilst drinking in the local bar - as the LSD started to kick in ,he then was overcome with an urge to get rid of his money - so he walked through the town centre throwing all the money he could muster to the four winds - which was quite a lot as he had the takings for a shop he owned that afternoon.

Somehow Ive always wanted to do just that - just throw money away in a busy town centre,

Am I alone in this respect ... ?

[Bagpuss]

I know a guy who is worth tens of millions, you wouldn't know it, his clothes are cheap and old, his flat is nothing special. His only concession to wealth is a 10 yr old Porsche. He has no kids. Yet he is obsessed with making ever more money that he won't spend. Most of his wealth was passed on, so perhaps that is the reason.

If you look at most well known super rich businessmen, they don't work like this. money is a tool to get them what they want. It flows out as much as in. Fortunes are won and lost. But the overriding similarity is the money always flows back.

[AlfredJPruffock]

when I was a kid, I used to try to get as much of the nice stuff onto my plate as I could. Then when I couldnt finish it all , my mum had a saying 'Your eyes are bigger than your belly'

I am sure its the same mechanism that you are describing Alf. Grab as much as you can, worry about what you are going to do with it afterwards.

With - Without
After All -
its what the fightings all about


Aye EO

There is a saying in Scotland that my Granny sued to say to guard against acquisitive greed - 'If you had everything - where would you put it ?'

[EternalOptimist]

when I was a kid, I used to try to get as much of the nice stuff onto my plate as I could. Then when I couldnt finish it all , my mum had a saying 'Your eyes are bigger than your belly'

I am sure its the same mechanism that you are describing Alf. Grab as much as you can, worry about what you are going to do with it afterwards.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Money works like a drug on the human brain – and even just the thought of earning a higher salary gives us a physical buzz, a study has found.


Scientists have discovered that thinking about cash stimulates the reward centres involved in pleasure and the higher the salary – even if it is just imagined – the greater the pleasure generated in the brain.

This may be no great surprise, but the most intriguing aspect of the research is that the findings hold true even if what we want to buy costs more, for example in times of high inflation, and our actual spending power drops.


The results of the study suggest that the human brain is innately susceptible to the illusion of wealth that money can bring.

This is known in economics as "money illusion" – when people get fixated on the nominal value of money, rather than on its actual purchasing power.

Some economists have proposed that people behave irrationally when it comes to wages by being happier with higher salary increases in times of high inflation than they are with lower salary rises in times of low inflation.

It has now emerged that more money really does seem to generate the feelings of reward in the brain that are also involved in irrational or addictive behaviour, even if the purchasing power of higher salaries is reduced by high inflation.