Yeah but, who's happier? That's not easy to answer btw. I've read studies that show evidence for both: -Money brings you happiness (up to some asymptote most never reach) -Poor (by western standards) rural tribes or hunter-gatherers are very happy.

I think it's illustrative to compare assets across the world but perhaps a more normalized metric would be overall "happiness", whatever that means (no its not easy to define).

My own western-biased experience tells me it's a bit of both. Money does in fact bring freedom of time which can bring happiness, but I've met some extremely happy people living on peanuts, eating very healthy and living on islands off the coast of Japan.