Lesson: Crime doesn't pay. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are decidedly charming as the young Depression-era anti-heroes of the crime film "Bonnie and Clyde." At least they are until they start slaughtering people right and left. Then things start to get ugly and serious and scary -- sort of like what's going on with our banking system.

There certainly is anger and outrage over multibillion-dollar bailouts, risky mortgage practices and how the credit rug has been pulled out from under consumers and businesses. (See "The banks have declared war -- on you.") But people aren't taking the Bonnie and Clyde route for revenge.

Bank robberies and thefts, in fact, have decreased from 7,272 in 2006 to 6,182 in 2007 to 6,105 in 2008, the FBI says. And the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crime, property crime and firearm-related crime have steadily declined since 1993 (except for an uptick in firearm-related crime in 2005). What's gone up: felony convictions and the percentage of crimes reported to police.

Still not convinced that crime doesn't pay? Keep in mind that, according to FBI crime statistics, of the 19 people who died during the commission of a bank robbery in 2008, 16 were the perpetrators.

Continued: "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Lesson: Money isn't everything. This Frank Capra classic tells the Depression-era story of two New York families: one rich, repressed and miserable; the other broke, bohemian and blissfully content. Their orbits collide when Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), a sweet working girl whose free-spirited family puts relationships and creativity above all else, falls in love with Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart), the son of a Wall Street wheeler-dealer whose life revolves around money, munitions and the occasional monopoly.

Hilarity ensues as the two families mix, mingle and hash out their disparate attitudes toward love, life and money. Not surprisingly, family, friends and joie de vivre win out over the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Can money buy happiness? Princeton researchers who surveyed nearly 1,000 people in 2004 found that people with above-average incomes were "barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience." They also tended to be more tense and spend less time enjoying themselves.

But a study presented in February found that when you spend money on experiences, such as travel or theater tickets, it satisfies "the need for social connectedness and vitality -- a feeling of being alive." That feeling -- not necessarily the money -- makes people happy. (See "7 smart ways to buy happiness.")

Either way, as Lionel Barrymore's character says in the movie, "You can't take it with you . . . so what good is it? As near as I can see, the only thing you can take with you is the love of your friends."