Morgan Housel

has some degree of that.

If I had a little bit more money, my problems would go away, even if they don't necessarily know it or not.

So much of spending is a psychological exercise.

There's an itch that you're trying to scratch, and that manifests in so many different ways.

And so I've often thought of money, look, is money the root of society, the core of society?

No, there's obviously a million things more important than money.

But I do think it's the clearest window that we can look through to try to figure out what's going on.

in our own lives, in other people's lives, in society.

It shows very starkly what people value, what they're scared of, what they're aspiring to become.

There are many more elements to the puzzle.

Your health, your friends, your family.

We can go on that forever.

But money is a very clear window that if you see how somebody engages with money, you're like, oh, I understand your insecurities.

I understand your aspirations.

I understand your self-confidence.

I understand what you think of other people.

You can learn a lot about that.

Yes.

And it manifests in very different ways.

There's a great financial writer named Tiffany Alishay.