The Monkey With The Biggest Posse Wins

Last summer, before the financial crisis hit everybody, I had an unexpected phone call from a friend on the other side of the world I hadn't spoken with in a couple years. He had made a great deal of money in business, but now was threatened with the possibility of losing most of it. He was panicked as if he was in physical danger. "I'm fighting for my life", he kept saying.

I talked to him for an hour or two. I hope it helped-- I'm not sure. But it really got me thinking about the connection between wealth and anxiety in the modern world. Last week, Laura Rowley at Yahoo Finance wrote an excellent article about status anxiety, which I found fascinating.

An intriguing idea that calls into question a lot of what we believe about "progress": "Financial failure has become associated with a sense of shame that the peasant of old, denied all chances in life, had also thankfully been spared."