Was this AI written? It seems confusing to me but I'm not an economist. I think another way to look at happiness and money is that while money doesn't necessarily buy happiness, it avoids unhappiness. So you remove a negative factor -- not having money, which is a position nobody wants to be in. This is similar to your overall health, friends, love, etc.. It's not that you need tons of them , but not having any of them is a problem, especially health.

"When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death."