Wealth equals happiness. Is it too simplistic a formula? Money buys you luxury but not necessarily happiness. There have been studies and researches on the subject and the results have been mixed. One opinion is that the law of diminishing operates in this case and beyond a certain point more inflow of income does not bring proportional amount of happiness with it. Once certain needs were met the happiness plateaued instead of growing. But there is a contradictory school of thought as well.
This study concludes that more wealth did, in fact, make people more satisfied with their lives, even if they still had day-to-day frustrations. Now Gates Foundation has got into the arena as well because they are dealing with wealth and have strong opinions about it. There report portrays the ultra rich as lost souls and says that too much money results in family distortions. An article in The Atlantic found respondents to be generally a dissatisfied lot for whom money gave birth to varied anxieties.
The most interesting finding of their researches was that most of the rich were dissatisfied with their sizeable fortune. A lot of them felt that they would feel financially secure if they had 25% more wealth. Very often the response of the rich varies according to the situation they are in. They generally dislike the tight control of a parent on the wealth. Those who have inherited the wealth have self doubts about their abilities. And some simply credit luck for their wealth.
