You also can't ignore the mechanisms behind the private "wealth".
Air conditioning and central heating isn't a luxury when you live in a climate incompatible with human live without it. Having a car isn't a luxury when the infrastructure to bike, walk, or take public transit to your destinations does not exist. Having a three-thousand-square-foot home with a two-car garage isn't luxury when it is literally illegal to build the kind of mixed-use apartment building you actually want to live in. All of that is of course made worse when you're being forced to go into heavy debt to sustain this "luxury" lifestyle.
And as the article points out, it gets even more obvious when you look at day-to-day life. Sure, working that 9-hour-a-day job with a three-hour-a-day commute might mean you can afford another iPhone per year, but wouldn't you rather give up that iPhone for a 7-hour-a-day job with a 30-minute-a-day commute? Who care about wealth when you don't have the time and energy to spend that extra cash on things like meeting with your friends, cooking the meals you love, or enjoying a hike in the forest?
Plenty of seemingly asset-wealthy people are cash-poor, and even the cash-rich are usually time-poor. No wonder they aren't happy: they are too busy working to actually live.
Air conditioning and central heating isn't a luxury when you live in a climate incompatible with human live without it. Having a car isn't a luxury when the infrastructure to bike, walk, or take public transit to your destinations does not exist. Having a three-thousand-square-foot home with a two-car garage isn't luxury when it is literally illegal to build the kind of mixed-use apartment building you actually want to live in. All of that is of course made worse when you're being forced to go into heavy debt to sustain this "luxury" lifestyle.
And as the article points out, it gets even more obvious when you look at day-to-day life. Sure, working that 9-hour-a-day job with a three-hour-a-day commute might mean you can afford another iPhone per year, but wouldn't you rather give up that iPhone for a 7-hour-a-day job with a 30-minute-a-day commute? Who care about wealth when you don't have the time and energy to spend that extra cash on things like meeting with your friends, cooking the meals you love, or enjoying a hike in the forest?
Plenty of seemingly asset-wealthy people are cash-poor, and even the cash-rich are usually time-poor. No wonder they aren't happy: they are too busy working to actually live.