Wealth

"People were saying that Germany couldn't possibly equip a vast army and wage a war, because it didn't have enough gold. What wasn't understood then, and still isn't really understood today, is that the reality of money is of the same type as the reality of centimeters, grams, hours, or lines of longitude. Money is a way of measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft He needs real wealth, in the form of a fishing rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion.
But this ingrained and archaic confusion of money with wealth is now the main reason we are not going ahead full tilt with the development of our technological genius for the production of more than adequate food, clothing, housing, and utilities for every person on earth" Alan Watts

Interesting read.

http://www.beezone.com/alanwatts/moneyversuswealth/moneyvswealth_book.html
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/10569084/Alan_Watts__Matter.epub

Non-monetary well-being and prosperity is real wealth.

A prestigious black credit card is of no use if there's a power outage and you can't get an authorization to buy food at the local supermarket or convenience store. In this scenario, you will need good old cash to obtain food.

It also applies to having a diploma from a prestigious university if the new graduate can't find a job in his field of study. Why waste 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars just to get a piece of paper?

This does not make any sense.......everyone worth his salt knows that money is the medium to trade and is just a means to an end. Wealth is measured by how much money one has to trade for stuff one needs or desires. If the stuff is free, there is no need for money and the wealth is free, but nothing is free in this world, not even the air one breathes or the love one gets from a female companion, because there is a cost, even if it is not money, it can be measured in other ways, like time, effort and feelings, etc.

Degrees and money are elements of the system which we are born into. Chasing of money for the sake of churning out more money = perceiving money as an end in itself which is quite a common syndrome among city dwellers.The purpose of having money so that you can have more money then becomes an endless loop. The accumulation of numbers is no longer for exchanging of goods but for earning some psychological satisfaction (an artificial goal to work towards, social status, sense of security...etc).
The movies "in Time" and "Snowpiercer" maybe a close approx of what the system is trying to achieve.

Everything is owned by a supreme one. Everything you owned is bestowed by the one.

One could also say that there are equally spiritually poverty in wealthy Singapore as there are many more Spiritually rich people in a much poorer economy in India. If one seeks materials things to establish his or her personal identity, one is living by the thread and could collapse once his or her wealth is gone!

The current so called "economical issues" with the japs.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html