A million dollars ain't what it used to be..

[Miss*Bijou]

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U.S. millionaires say $7 million not enough to be rich

By Helen Kearney
Mon Mar 14, 2011



(Reuters) - A million dollars ain't what it used to be.

More than four out of ten American millionaires say they do not feel rich. Indeed many would need to have at least $7.5 million in order to feel they were truly rich, according to a Fidelity Investments survey.

Some 42 percent of the more than 1,000 millionaires surveyed by Fidelity said they did not feel wealthy. Respondents had at least $1 million in investable assets, excluding any real estate or retirement accounts.

"Every person in the survey is wealthy," said Sanjiv Mirchandani, president of National Financial, a unit of Fidelity. "But they are still worried about outliving their assets."

The average age of respondents was 56 years old with a mean of $3.5 million of investable assets. The threshold for "rich" rose with age.

"They compare themselves to their peer group ... and they are also thinking about the long period they will have in retirement and want more assets" to fund their lifestyle, said Michael Durbin, president of Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services.

Still, millionaires are slightly more optimistic now than they were in 2009, when 46 percent did not feel wealthy.

Respondents were also more optimistic about the U.S. economy. While they thought the current U.S. economy remained very weak, they think it will improve by the end of this year.

Fidelity noted the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans hold more than 55 percent of the nation's wealth.

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Waaah waaah wah, poor poor millionaires!

It must be hard for them to get by with soooo little.

What a bunch of jerks! Seriously....


Out of touch with the real world, maybe? ugh.

 

[HankQuinlan]

Aww. Poor babies. I feel like starting a charity.

 

[aznboi9]

It almost brings a tear to my eye.




Almost.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

The Empathy Ceiling: The Rich Are Different —
And Not In a Good Way, Studies Suggest
The 'Haves' show less empathy than 'Have-nots'

by Brian Alexander
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/10-7



Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest."

“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”

In an academic version of a Depression-era Frank Capra movie, Keltner and co-authors of an article called “Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm,” published this week in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, argue that “upper-class rank perceptions trigger a focus away from the context toward the self….”

In other words, rich people are more likely to think about themselves. “They think that economic success and political outcomes, and personal outcomes, have to do with individual behavior, a good work ethic,” said Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it.

“I will quote from the Tea Party hero Ayn Rand: “‘It is the morality of altruism that men have to reject,’” he said.

Whether or not Keltner is right, there certainly is a “let them cake” vibe in the air. Last week The New York Times reported on booming sales of luxury goods, with stores keeping waiting lists for $9,000 coats and the former chairman of Saks saying, “If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?”

According to Gallup, Americans earning more than $90,000 per year continued to increase their consumer spending in July while middle- and lower-income Americans remained stalled, even as the upper classes argue that they can’t pay any more taxes. Meanwhile, the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of us continues to grow wider, with over 80 percent of the nation’s financial wealth controlled by about 20 percent of the people.

Unlike the rich, lower class people have to depend on others for survival, Keltner argued. So they learn “prosocial behaviors.” They read people better, empathize more with others, and they give more to those in need.

That’s the moral of Capra movies like “You Can’t Take It With You,” in which a plutocrat comes to learn the value of community and family. But Keltner, author of the book “Born To Be Good: The Science of A Meaningful Life,” doesn’t rely on sentiment to make his case.

He points to his own research and that of others. For example, lower class subjects are better at deciphering the emotions of people in photographs than are rich people.

In video recordings of conversations, rich people are more likely to appear distracted, checking cell phones, doodling, avoiding eye contact, while low-income people make eye contact and nod their heads more frequently signaling engagement.

In one test, for example, Keltner and other colleagues had 115 people play the “dictator game,” a standard trial of economic behavior. “Dictators” were paired with an unseen partner, given ten “points” that represented money, and told they could share as many or as few of the points with the partner as they desired. Lower-class participants gave more even after controlling for gender, age or ethnicity.

Keltner has also studied vagus nerve activation. The vagus nerve helps the brain record and respond to emotional inputs. When subjects are exposed to pictures of starving children, for example, their vagus nerve typically becomes more active as measured by electrodes on their chests and a sensor band around their waists. In recent tests, yet to be published, Keltner has found that those from lower-class backgrounds have more intense activation.

Other studies from other researchers have not produced the clear-cut results Keltner uses to advance his argument. In surveys of charitable giving, some show that low-income people give more, but other studies show the opposite.

“The research regarding income and helping behaviors has always been little bit mixed,” explained Meredith McGinley, a professor of psychology at Pittsburgh’s Chatham University.

Then there is the problem of Tea Partiers’ own class position. While they are funded by the wealthy, many do not identify themselves as wealthy (though there is dispute on the real demographics). Still, a strong allegiance to the American Dream can lead even regular folks to overestimate their own self-reliance in the same way as rich people.

As behavioral economist Mark Wilhelm of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis pointed out, most people could quickly tell you how much they paid in taxes last year but few could put a dollar amount on how they benefited from government by, say, driving on interstate highways, taking drugs gleaned from federally funded medical research, or using inventions created by people educated in public schools.

There is one interesting piece of evidence showing that many rich people may not be selfish as much as willfully clueless, and therefore unable to make the cognitive link between need and resources. Last year, research at Duke and Harvard universities showed that regardless of political affiliation or income, Americans tended to think wealth distribution ought to be more equal.

The problem? Rich people wrongly believed it already was.

 

[joho]

As you make more money, you tend to spend more too. You tend to go out to more expensive restaurants, to take more fancier vacations, and to buy more expensive cars. It's amazing to see a friend who has more than 10 million dollars in the bank still flying an economy class!

 

[Sirenah]

What happen to "as long as we got love and each other?!" lol

 

[emilioa4]

what you consider rich is relative to what lifestyle you live. while I earn well over $150k a year, by any normal standard this puts me into the high income bracket/upper class bracket, i do not feel that way. I support a young family, and the wife stays home to care for them. while it pays for our expenses and affords us some luxuries that others cannot partake in, I am not "livin de life" (for those that saw the lame rap vid posted on this forum). While I dont have quite 7 million in the bank yet (note the yet....i will get there, i will get there....) it is a lot of money to have, but in the world of the rich and famous, 7 mil is really not a lot of money. like the saying goes, a rolex is the rich man's timex. yes if you had to pare down your expenses in case of emergency, 7 mil will cover you for life if taken care of. I personally would feel wealthy with that kind of coin in the bank, however depending on the company you keep, it can seem pretty insignificant. so anyways, I dont feel sorry for these guys, but I do understand where they are coming from.

 

[Pirate Code]

What happen to "as long as we got love and each other?!" lol

Agreed! I feel rich.. I have everything I need to live comfortably, am relatively healthy and have a loving partner, a great family and good friends.
I live in Vancouver, Canada in the most affluent era in history. I would say if you're like me, you're rich too.

 

[Horse99]

It's called inflation and it's one of the many ways governments steal from their citizens.

 

[princeofdarkness]

It's all relative. I often ask, "How much is enough?".
I know some people with incredible net worth and yet each live and spend quite differently from one another.

 

[FunSugarDaddy]

I bet Warren Buffet gets green with envy when he hears of Carlos Slims fortune.

I actually doubt it, because if Warren Buffet cared about wealth then (a) he wouldn't be living in a modest home he bought over 40 years ago and (b) he wouldn't be giving it all away upon his death. and (c) he's probably too damn old to care about whether or not he makes yet another billion.

As for the defination of wealth, it starts with health and happiness and moves to money. In terms of money, helping out the kids, and not wondering how our going to pay for things into the future (perhaps 20-30 years if your retired) would be my defination of wealthy. How you get there in terms of types of income streams doesn't much matter. You could own real estate, have a defined benefit plan, have government entitlements, RRSP's or non registered accounts or a combination of these, it doesn't much matter, (although each is subject to different tax rules)

 

[luvsdaty]

I had more fun with my friends back 25 yrs ago when i was broke, same as my ex back then, too many people get very phoney when money is concerned & a lot of them are not happy with what they have.While money takes care of some problems, it often creates many more.

 

[gpchillin]

A million dollars might be cool but ya your not rich I don't think with just a million not anymore, When first time homes are $300,000+ and nice upper middle class homes are $750,000+ having a million means you can buy out a nice upper middle class home but your not going to own a mansion and your sure not going to be able to quit work and retire on a million dollars not anymore. 3-5 million ya your now breaking the middle class bubble in now entering the lower wealthy class you can have a smaller not too extravagant mansion and nice sports car but with 3-5 million if your under 50 you have to watch your expenses because you can blow through whats left with travel and just living a wealthy class life style. I would agree 7-10 million puts you in the wealth class and you can live the life for the rest of yours without much care or concern about finances anymore.

I would say 10 million is now the new 1 million in the 21st century.