Sunday, June 05, 2005

Relax, you'll never be rich

Okay, here's that NYTimes article about the "hyper-rich". Again, the Times focuses on 145,000 people out of the population and ignores the rest of us.
So, what are the facts?
1) There are only 145,000 people in the United States with income over $1.6 mil.
2) Those people have tripled their holdings in the last decade. They have become hyper-rich. Many of them are well above $1.6 mil.
3) More importantly, a fairly high number of them are inheritors. More Paris Hiltons than Bill Gateses.
4) Over %50 of us make $18,000 a year or less.
5) Social mobility has stopped in the last decade, and probably declined.

What should you do? Relax. There's nothing wrong with you if you can't obtain the television lifestyle, or if you struggle to get by. Most of us do. You'll likely never be rich. In fact, your life will likely never change much. But, there's a freedom in that. It allows you to think about other things and stop worrying about your lifestyle.

2 comments:

BarbaraFromCalifornia said...

You are completely right...I will never be rich! But I am happy.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Rufus said...

No problem. It was quite enjoyable. I'll never be rich either, but as long as we have food and the cat has food, we'll be okay.