The Truth About the Rich

[AlexM]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...renextdoor.htm

About Millionaires:

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* Only 19 percent receive any income or wealth of any kind from a trust fund or an estate.

* More than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance.

* Fewer than 25 percent ever received "an act of kindness" of $10,000 or more from their parents, grandparents, or other relatives.

* Ninety-one percent never received, as a gift, as much as $1 of the ownership of a family business.

* Nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives.


More than one hundred years ago the same was true. In The American Economy, Stanley Lebergott reviews a study conducted in 1892 of the 4,047 American millionaires. He reports that 84 percent "were nouveau riche, having reached the top without the benefit of inherited wealth."

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[SNOWBALL]

Post deleted by jman220

[ojc02]

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...renextdoor.htm

About Millionaires:

[ QUOTE ]
* Only 19 percent receive any income or wealth of any kind from a trust fund or an estate.

* More than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance.

* Fewer than 25 percent ever received "an act of kindness" of $10,000 or more from their parents, grandparents, or other relatives.

* Ninety-one percent never received, as a gift, as much as $1 of the ownership of a family business.

* Nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives.


More than one hundred years ago the same was true. In The American Economy, Stanley Lebergott reviews a study conducted in 1892 of the 4,047 American millionaires. He reports that 84 percent "were nouveau riche, having reached the top without the benefit of inherited wealth."

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I'm not so surprised. I remember reading in a newspaper in England that a lot of the richer folk over there intend to leave their children very little so that they actually have to try. Kids who inherit everything tend to suck.

Case in point

Edit: lol, turns out that was a viral marketing campaign, but people like this do exist.

[TxRedMan]

Granted I didn't read the article, but I would venture to say that this would be very geographically dependent. i.e., in Texas, you have many more inherited millions than new found millions, where as in a place like California in the early 90's, there were many newly made millionaires.

[sam h]

This doesnt seem that surprising given that we are only talking about households with > 1M in net household assets. That has not been too hard to achieve for older age cohorts given trends in the last several decades in equity and housing markets.

[Utah]

The truth about the rich:

They are really really happy [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[slickpoppa]

I don't know if I would equate having a million dollars in net worth as being "rich."

According to that article, the median millionare earns about 130K a year. That's well-off, but probably not what most people would consider to be rich. Although the word millionare still seems to have an intrinsic cachet, inflation has made being a millionare mean much less than it used to.

In the words of Gordon Gekko:

"And I'm not talking about some four-hundred thousand dollar a year, working Wall Street stiff, flying first-class, being comfortable. I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to buy your own jet, rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred-million dollars Buddy. A player. Or nothing"

[SNOWBALL]

Post deleted by jman220.

Edit: *Post this in ATF, not in the thread, AlexM hit notify mod on your troll post, I deleted it.*

[cardcounter0]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if I would equate having a million dollars in net worth as being "rich."

According to that article, the median millionare earns about 130K a year. That's well-off, but probably not what most people would consider to be rich.

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Correct. If you look at the demographics, most are self-employed. So you got the Dry Wall business, or the plumbing contractor, etc. In theory, they could sell their business for 250k, add about 100k of company trucks, tools, materials, etc.

Then they are home owners, buying the nice house in the middle class neighborhood years ago. The 80k house is now worth 300k plus.

Run the business, be a "saver", invest a little bit, live simply, low maintenance life style, don't live beyond your means. Bingo! You are a millionaire on paper. You might even go to Florida for vacation sometimes.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
According to that article, the median millionare earns about 130K a year. That's well-off, but probably not what most people would consider to be rich

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Most people except Iron!