I totaly agree with the post that says "don't over-think" this. The relationship between money and happiness is certainly not very complex (or very interesting). Of course, money buys happiness that is fleeting and, while happiness is very complicated by itself, its relationship to money isn't. Above, someone says money is "not a direct guarantee of well-being." But the original post didn't ask if money was connected to a guarantee of well-being; the question involved its relationship to happiness. Happiness and "a guarantee of well-being" certainly are two different things.
All that said, from a considerable distance, as it were, I surmise that a lot of money buys a lot of fleeting moments of happiness. There's something to be said for that.
Which would people rather have -- money or happiness, given the two are often incompatible, rather than symbiotic. That would be an amusing question.
Or you could ask, does money buy unhappiness? Given the number of lottery winners who quickly go broke, lose all their friends, and face suddenly crumbling family lives, not to mention all the celebrities who find their identities shattered, money also buys unhappiness. That's fairly undisputable, too.
