My financial planner had us play a little game. It went something like this:

"I want you to write down your five closest friends. Got it? Okay, now next to their name, I want you to write down how much you think they make in a year. Take your time and give it your best guess - obviously, you don't know. Got it? Okay, now I want you to do some math - add up that column of numbers... and divide by five. No, you don't need to tell me what that number is - let me tell you:

"That's about how much you make in a year. Now: shall we talk about why country clubs exist?"

"Wealth" is a societal marker that allows a person to judge themselves against everyone else. Countercultures argue that money isn't the best metric to judge success and they certainly make a compelling point. I think Bill Gates has a pretty good handle on it:

“I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger. Dick’s has not raised their prices enough,” he said, referring to the Seattle-area fast-food chain. “But being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing.”

Frankly, the discussion gets pretty boring pretty quickly so let me leave you with a video that isn't: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc