This response has always seemed meaningless to the point of insult; and the conspiracy theorist in me wonders how much of &quot;they don&#x27;t REALLY want&#x2F;need money&quot; is motivated by the people who have to pay out.<p>(sorry, this comes off as very blunt, please take it as only a comment on the argument and not you, but I needed to use strong words to express the strength of what it makes me feel)<p>As you say, &quot;essentials for life&quot; are different in the valley, but are also different per-person.  My essentials were MUCH simpler when I was living alone.  When I got a fiancee in industry, my essentials became easier to support  Now that she went into academia, it suddenly became a struggle.<p>Combine this with area of living, and what do you see?  That the &quot;essentials&quot; are far more dynamic than your argument typically lets on, not only in terms of material differences like spousal compensation&#x2F;how many children you&#x27;re supporting, but psychological&#x2F;learned response, e.g. &quot;I have to get my used car repaired every year or so because I can&#x27;t afford a new one off the lot&quot;.<p>Is that essential?  Different people could probably make different arguments.  Does it hurt when you have that thought pulling in next to someone driving a Porsche?  You better damn well bet it does.<p>So to bring this back to the root:  VERY LONG TERM maybe I could agree with you, but life isn&#x27;t just a very long term calculation, the dominating thoughts day to day are (at least for the less zen of us) very now-focused, and expose many situations in which a little more money (as a parent comment said) would drastically increase the quality of life.