Avian Influenza

These last few months we have been bombarded with alarmist warnings about avian influenza while a much scarier virus has already spread among us: affluenza.

"Our society is more troubled by problems of overabundance. We are three times richer than in the 1950s, and diseases particular to "affluenza" clog our social and individual arteries. We are more overworked, more stressed, more depressed and much fatter. ...
Critiques of affluenza go deeper than puritanical dismay at the aggressive vulgarity of materialism. The centrepiece of the argument is that we are obsessed privately with more income and better goods, and collectively with "growth" and "progress". Yet all the scholarly work on well-being shows that after passing a benchmark of real deprivation, greater prosperity does not lead to increased happiness."
—Anne Manne, "Sell Your Soul And Spend, Spend, Spend," Syndey Morning Herald, April 14, 2003

I had been thinking about writing a post to illustrate my conflicting emotions about money, until I saw my own views reflected in a great article about plutophobia . I would not be able to explain this "disorder" any better than the author does, so I will just leave the link posted for future reference.