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About this quote

What does it mean?
Money is compared to love and death as a primary source of joy and anxiety. Historically, it has plagued people by being either unreliable or scarce.
In plain terms
Money brings great joy and great anxiety, often causing trouble throughout history.
What can you take from it?
Money's value lies in its balance between reliability and availability.

Where it applies

  • economic policy
  • personal finance
  • historical analysis

Putting it to work

  • stabilize currency
  • manage financial anxiety

Questions to consider

  • Is money worth the stress?
  • How does scarcity shape behavior?

Another view

This ignores how wealth management can mitigate these historical issues.

More from John Kenneth Galbraith

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  2. Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. Anything that is disagreeable must surely have beneficial economic effects.

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  3. The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been…

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