Why do Americans emphasize the important of money? They should consider the question from four sides:

Firstly, the materialism is one of reasons for the outlook on money. America is a society in which workers must buy and sell to live. Every part of life becomes a commodity, something to be bought and sold, whether it is a computer, the latest automobile, technological skills, or our ability to work. The media bombard people with advertisement. Commercials interrupt TV and radio programs with catchy appeal to the Americans to go out and buy. Shopping has almost replaced baseball as the national pastime. The Americans were induced by those factors. And the main way to achieve them is money. For example, Margarat Anderson, an accountant who works in a large firm on the west coast, expressed it well when she say: “we overemphasize on material goods very much, like computers. We always have to add things to our lives. We buy things just because of how beautiful and useful when we see it from TV, advertisement. It’s easy to allow money to corrupt us.” However, those advertisements not only have influence on the adults, but also have a great impart on the young people. The young people have become more material, and obsessive of money. In one survey on the Internet, 90 percent of parents agreed that children today wanted too many material things.” And 75 percent agreed that advertisement was corrupting our basic outlook on money. For example, Teri silver, a college student who studies at the New York, said she was silenced by the greed she saw the beautiful clothes from TV’s advertisement. For buying beautiful clothes, she has a deepest love of money. She thinks money is the only access to help her own these clothes.

Secondly, the competition makes the Americans have a deep obsession of money. This “land of plenty” has long enjoyed abundant material and human resources. It has the world’s largest, richest, and most productive economy. And people have gotten well to material wealth. Besides that, Americans believe that everyone has an equal opportunity to success. People aren’t abandoned by social class. They can work hardly to improve their status. Many immigrants reach this land of opportunity just for seeking a better future. This belief in equal opportunity has produced a spirit of competition. It likes a race to the top of the success ladder. However, if you want to be on the top of the success ladder in the United States, the first thing you have to do is collecting money. Especially for nowadays’ American situation, the United States stands as the world’s most prominent power, the Americans are living in a country both the military investment and the foreign policy achievement. However, now America is facing a series of challenges in the world economy. It was once the dominant exporting nation, but its competitive superiority was lost gradually in the 1970s and 1980s. America‘s biggest challenge is coming from the Pacific rim countries, such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. American leadership and research in technology and its vast agricultural industry are being threatened by other nations. And the relative importance of American economy in the world has declined. The situation of the American economy tells Americans that they must have enough money, only in this way can they succeed, and they can still keep the leadership of the world.