Money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.

Money just changes hands

We tend to think of money as something that disappears or appears, that we either have or don't have. But Stein's observation cuts through that anxiety: money itself isn't vanishing. It's circulating. What changes is who holds it, and that matters enormously—not because money is magical, but because it reveals something about power and movement in the world.

Think about how this plays out in real life. When you lose a job, it feels catastrophic because suddenly that income stream isn't flowing to your pocket anymore. But that money doesn't evaporate; it goes somewhere else—to whoever replaces you, to the business owner, to investors. The same happens at larger scales: manufacturing leaves a town, and it's devastating locally, but the wealth keeps flowing elsewhere. Recognizing this doesn't fix the immediate problem, but it shifts how we think about it. Instead of "the money is gone," it's "the money moved, and we need to understand where and why."

The unsettling part is that Stein isn't offering comfort. She's being precise and unsentimental. Money will continue flowing. The real question isn't whether it exists, but whether the pockets that matter to you will be among those catching it.