Franklin is making a radical claim about possession itself—that ownership without satisfaction is just custody, a joyless guardianship. Most people assume wealth and enjoyment travel together, but he's noticed they don't always: the miser with ten thousand dollars who counts them obsessively enjoys less than the modest person who buys a good meal without anxiety. The real danger isn't poverty but the peculiar poverty of having much while feeling nothing, which is why we see financially successful people perpetually chasing the next acquisition, forever restless, forever poor in the ways that actually matter.