访谈录 Interview 2007-07-20&07-22, 用金钱买幸福？

Many people dream of making it big, buying a bigger house, designer clothes and a nicer car, but with a record number of millionaires now living right here in the United States, an age-old question is now front and center--- can money really buy happiness?

The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. So why do people want it so badly? And if you get it, can it buy you happiness?

Deal or no deal?

Money is God in this country, you know, it's almost too important to us, it takes over.

Be great to have lots of money, but then when you think about it, you have a different set of problems. I mean you are still paying the same bills, just will be higher.

Best-selling author David Bach is a money mentor 1 on CNBC's The Millionaire Inside. Going from rags to riches, he says he found happiness but it wasn't just about dollars and cents.

I think what most Americans really want is freedom. We are in the land of the free, but when three out of four people are living paycheck to paycheck, they don't feel free. So I think there are a lot of opportunities for the average American to become what I call an automatic millionaire.

For Bach, that means paying yourself first, saving one hour a day of your income and spending less.

You have different levels of life, you have the survival level, or someone really is living paycheck to paycheck. Then you have security, where someone as you might basically need to cover. Maybe they've got six months to a year with the expenses put aside. Once you get passed a year of expenses, you'll start to become free.

In the end, happiness is not as simple as making more money.

The more money you have, the more you need to spend anyway. People don't know how to keep their money. And people don't know how to spend it wisely.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist 2; Vera Gibbons is a correspondent for CNBC. Morning to both of you.(Good morning.)

We spend so much time in our lives trying to make money. We must believe it's gonna bring us happiness. But the research is kind of mixed, isn't it?

Well, the research is mixed. And I think part of the reason for that is that people acknowledge in their souls if not in their wallets that it won't make them happy. Most people don't marry for money, most people don't pursue careers simply for the money. There are a lot of teachers in America, who won't trade their jobs for a sales job to make more. So we vote with our feet, in essence.

But the problem is we see all these people out there today, with the yachts, with the plane, with the boats, all of these, the planes, the big houses. And we think we want that too. They look happy, they have all these possessions. (It looks that way.) More millionaires, more multi-millionaires, more billionaires than ever, and they have all the toys.

Yeah, but the research what I have read, it's, it indicates about scale. A little more money, in other word/, you can give somebody enough money to take them from poverty to middle class, (Sure) that makes people happy. But a lot more money, to go from five hundred thousand to five million, doesn't make you happy.

That's right; money is gonna have the more significant impact on those low income individuals. People who have very little, they are making 20 thousand dollars. They get from 20 to 50 thousand dollars? that's gonna / have a big impact on them.

That may, that would. But let me tell 15 years in practice. I have never had anybody come in and say, you know why I'm here? I need a little more money. Right, it is all about do I feel loved, and do I love something in the world. In other words, doing work that does not speak to your heart and making lots of money is a prescription 3 for disaster.

Yeah, you listened to the surveys of the kinds of jobs that make people the happiest; they aren't necessarily, not even close to jobs that pay the most money. They are things like teachers, social workers, (people like that...) firefighters, (fireman yeah) not necessarily highly-paid jobs.

I will still align 4 for my own psychiatrist when I was in therapy, he said, the last place you wanna be is in the first-class seat, on a plane going somewhere you don't wanna go. Absolutely true. It's really about feeling loved. The people come to me, who are in the toughest spot, aren't convinced they are well loved, and they aren't convinced there are something in the world that they genuinely have passion and love for.

Good, passion is another thing that makes people happy. (Yeah) health and passion.

Health, health is at the top of the list in terms of what makes you happy. Having good relationships with people, having a lot of very close personal friends, having a good marriage, these are the types of things that make people happy.

Well, by the way then, health, money can help you buy happiness there. Because money can give you access to the best health care in the world. (Well, absolutely!) You still have to take care of yourself. (that's true), but it can make you healthier.

And if you flip 5 that around, then you'll get to the core of what really makes people happy. Coz sometimes you have to take the negative to see that you are content now. So if people were to imagine, I'm not going with it these moments, that their children would not well got forbidden. (Right) Then they will realize, you know what, I am pretty content even though my car is year-older than I'd like.

Yeah, no question. Well again, the age-old question, we continue to debate it.

Still.

Yeah, you're right!

No question. Vera, thanks.

Thank you! Thank you, Matt!

Doctor, thank you very much, still trying to get over that line when you said when I was in therapy.