ABSTRACT
As Alexis de Tocqueville observed more than 150 years ago, money and material goods are central to the culture of the United States. 1 As a nation, we are preoccupied with wealth and those who have it. Each year Forbes magazine publishes a list of the richest Americans. This list is certain to make the front page of daily newspapers and is discussed on morning talk shows. Overwhelmed by so many zeros, most of us have a difficult time distinguishing between millions and billions—they might as well be zillions—but we pay a great deal of attention to who has these millions and billions of dollars. A disproportional number of television shows are about the rich and ultrarich. On the newsstand we find a magazine called Money, but none called Values. The American dream is not to be born common and become noble, nor to be born ignorant and become smart, but to be born poor and become rich. It is a dream about financial wealth.
