Wow, talk about being greedy, I guess that's not enough to feel rich, maybe they need a few hundred million to feel good. I guess the other 50,000,000 in Poverty would be just happy with a couple of hundred thousands dollars. For Millionaires, $7 Million Still Not Enough to Be Rich Published: Monday, 14 Mar 2011 | 8:44 AM ET By: 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.
I keep telling people that this is about enough wealth to "feel secure" and the only thing that being a millionare gets you is a small buffer to prevent being kicked out on the street. The thing that scares me is that at any time wealthy foreigners came come over on buy the US up with there pocket change when you consider the mutli billionare club. Akuma
Folks wake up. $1million is not what it used to be. 10M is the new $1M. A few million invested only secures a lower middle class lifestyle if one is not annuitizing principle. $10M only secures a professional level income without annuitizing principle. That is well off compared to the indebted middle class who are net debtors but barely wealthy. Yet we are told a 70hr a week professional family pulling 250K with hardly any net assets is "the rich". what a joke.
It's been a long time since having $1 million meant you are rich. I figure $2 million is the minimum needed for a modest middle class retirement, assuming you already own your own home. That is why I can't feel too sorry for those public employees protesting in Wisconsin. Their benefits packages are equivalent to having a couple of million dollars, while high taxes guarantee that the rest of us will never be able to save that much.
I laugh and cry when I read about Obummer and Congress throwing around $250,000 as being the defintion of rich for tax purposes. It is a good deal of money, but rich it is not, especially if you have kids. Destroy the tax code and go after the real rich if you want, but at the same time it shouldn't be a penalty for doing well. The $250, 000 should be a million, and that should be at a rate less than where we are now. Above $10 mil. should be the top rate, and no exemptions. No allowances for stock options etc. Pay what you owe...period. I don't believe anyone should ever pay over 50% of their income. Yea I do have a problem with the inherited wealth, but they would have to pay on the income genrated to support their lifestyles.
when u reach $1 million, u'll learn how to get to $10 million. when u get to $10, u'll reach for $100, then the billionaire mark. but yeah...i dont blame them. i wanna be up there too!
just because the "rich" say that they need $7MM to feel rich doesn't make them greedy. Can you imagine someone living in India or China hearing about you complaining about your $80k a year and that its not enough when they make $200 a month? It's all relative. They are probably disgusted that you complain about these "millionaires" while you have running clean water and they don't.
You can't retire comfortably with only $2 million. You have up to 30 years to live, you get no interest from your savings, and the dollars themselves are declining in value about 5 or 6% per year. Do the math.
I remember reading a study on the super rich, people worth over 100mil, and the author found out that most of those people felt they needed twice what they had to be comfortable. Besides I wouldn't consider 7million USD a great number to feel comfortable with, it's not much to invest in business ventures - it's actually not enough to buy some of the apartments I see across the street from mine, and way too small amount for the bigger ones around the corner. And if you're far from retirement with the family to take care of, you might need much more that the returns you would get from those 7mil, not even counting inflation.
Plus the parents who gave their kids that money already paid taxes on it - or managed the proper tax free set up- for this money, and probably made the effort to make part of this money with the goal to have their kids profit of it later. It's a common talk from well off middle age fathers that they keep on working mostly to ensure the welll beeing of the next generation. I'd definitely lead a more epicurian life without having to focus on the kids' future, and probably in a cheaper more single oriented country. And definetely planning to pay as little tax as possible to transmit them my wealth - hoping they will enjoy it without shame whatsoever.